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Since starting Wellbutrin last august i have felt fairly stable as far as my depression goes. I have felt normal and sometimes almost upbeat in a way that did not slip into euphoria. I started taking Ritalin last year or this year due to insurance issues with my nuvigil for narcolepsy. I also had a......traumatic?? life experience where I learned that my husband had cheated on me and may have gotten this girl knocked up. We are trying to work things out, and I've been dealing, but it is hard. It constantly plays through my mind. She is always between us. That had a big triggering effect on me. Since then, back in April, I have been utilizing my support group and working on building myself back up and redefining my reality. It is a lot of work, but I have managed and I am learning to deal with it better. Lately though, I have felt my anxiety crawling up. I have also been super emotional. Crying for no obvious reason (in that moment, i will be fine and then something as minor as a sigh can trigger tears). I am aware that wellbutrin can cause issues with anxiety. Mine has always been very high though. Can anxiety cause you to cry like depression does? I'm not saying I'm not depressed right now....Just...I don't even know what I am trying to say or ask. I can't think. My thoughts are so disorganized right now. I did have two cups of coffee this morning.. One day I'll be perfectly fine and stable. The next day I may be overly emotional. The next day I may be good again. The next,awful or bad. I started keeping a mood chart about a month ago and it looks like an active seismograph! From day to day I cannot say how I might feel. To my knowledge I have not been diagnosed with rapid cycling anything, but my pdoc is still getting to know me. I was already medicated when I started seeing him with tweaks here and there. I've also learned I do not deal well with change. My husband started a new job and works as a mechanic during the day and a tow truck driver on nights and weekends so it feels like he is always gone. It going to take a lot of adjustment and I have not been handling it well. I've spent the last year applying for jobs and I cannot get hired anywhere. Part of me is thankful because I"m not sure how I would handle working around people, but a part of me is highly disappointed because I want to work. It feels so controversial. I do not want to just bum around and be completely dependent on anyone, but at the same time I am TERRIFIED of getting into the workforce again. I haven't worked in years because I have been home caring for children. Now, they are all in school and I worry, if I find a job then who will be home with them when they are sick? Who will take them to appointments? Things like that. What if I get a job and I can't control my emotions? I break down or have a very irritable day/s? I stay irritable. I always have. I can fake the happy personality, but I won't excel at my job doing that I don't think. I learn slow. I would once again have to adjust to something new. I avoid watching most tv, and listening to a lot of music as well as being around most people because I'm worried I'll be triggered into one emotion or another and not be able to pull myself out of it. People have asked me more than once why have I not applied for SSI? It seems so final I guess. I guess I'm worried that there will be no turning back if I do that. What else am I going to do though? I'm not doing anything currently except for being a money pit. I need to do something to help our household. I feel...what is the word...inept? useless? I'm not sure. I do not even know if my symptoms are uncontrolled enough to qualify if that is a thing. Do you have to be constantly uncontrolled to qualify? I am sorry the post was so long. I apologize again for being all over the place. I needed to get all of that out, but I had no idea how. I tell everyone that "I am fine." /sigh

Earlier tonight I was on computer and I thought I heard music. Everypne was asleep and all but 2 of our kids were gone. I ignored ot and went back to playing. The music persisted. I could hear the voice but couldnt make our the words. I could almost hear the instrument but I wasnt sure but might have been a guitar. Sounded like 80s rock. I looked all over the house tryong to find something to explain it and came up empty. So I went to bed. I woke up about an hour later and once again I heard a mans voice but couldnt hear the words. His tone was like that of a hellfire and brimstone preacher. Now , as I type this, I am still hearkng music. Now I can just hear a womans voice singing buy I cant understand it! This is freaking me out. What causes this? What are your experiences?

To those of you with experience with narcolepsy, do you have days where you can stay awake most of the day and then some days where you only dream that you have opened your eyes and done something? I have been like that lately. It doesn't really matter what time I go to sleep at night, I sometimes still have trouble waking up the next day. I'll believe that I got up to do something, or said something to my family, only to realize I never left the bed. Then there are days like today when I have no choice but to make sure I'm up due to errands or something but I cannot stay awake! I came close to having a wreck more than once on my way to physical therapy, then again on my way home because I kept dozing off....I was terrified. Well, later on, when I was awake enough to realize what could have happened I was. I fell asleep in therapy even. It's been crazy. My sleep doc prescribed Nuvigil, but for the last 2 months I have been waiting on "prior authorization".. I've called and never got the call back I was promised. Anyways, does extreme EDS fluctuate sometimes to where it may or may not be really really bad? I use to drink a lot of coffee and/or energy drinks but it seems that ever since I started taking Lithium that I have really had trouble with going to the restroom if I have caffeine. I can't stay out of there with it! ********* The first part I now realize I never posted after I typed it......weeks ago**************** The second part is why I came back to post lol I AM still having trouble with waking up the next day regardless of the amount of sleep I get....if I sleep. I dream constantly when I am out. I start dreaming almost immediately, if not before I close my eyes. Now, the freaky part is, it is getting harder to distinguish dreams from reality. I'm getting to where I can't even tell if I am really awake half the time. I will wake up and mention having the oddest dream/nightmare and "go about my day", only to wake up again and again and again and still be dreaming. I will be like that until someone physically wakes me up. The dreams, it's getting to where I can't tell if they WERE dreams, or if they might be memories. I catch myself asking my husband if this or that actually happened or if I merely dreamed it. It's becoming quite the cluster. Does anyone else have experience with things like this?

To those of you with experience with narcolepsy, do you have days where you can stay awake most of the day and then some days where you only dream that you have opened your eyes and done something? I have been like that lately. It doesn't really matter what time I go to sleep at night, I sometimes still have trouble waking up the next day. I'll believe that I got up to do something, or said something to my family, only to realize I never left the bed. Then there are days like today when I have no choice but to make sure I'm up due to errands or something but I cannot stay awake! I came close to having a wreck more than once on my way to physical therapy, then again on my way home because I kept dozing off....I was terrified. Well, later on, when I was awake enough to realize what could have happened I was. I fell asleep in therapy even. It's been crazy. My sleep doc prescribed Nuvigil, but for the last 2 months I have been waiting on "prior authorization".. I've called and never got the call back I was promised. Anyways, does extreme EDS fluctuate sometimes to where it may or may not be really really bad? I use to drink a lot of coffee and/or energy drinks but it seems that ever since I started taking Lithium that I have really had trouble with going to the restroom if I have caffeine. I can't stay out of there with it!

So, my friends and family keep mentioning I sleep too much. I nap, A lot. I'll nap and want another nap, i'll sleep in, wake up and then nap like two hours later at times. Etc. Other b.s. I've always thought it was just a lot of my depression problems, since depressed people can sleep a lot. I feel fatigued frequently, usually I know if I wanna go to bed I need to read something. It'll put me to sleep. if I'm slightly drowsy, only though. It's hard for me to concentrate at times, and i've had really bad nightmares that seemed so real that I've woken up in the middle of the night crying/screaming. I took the symptom screener on morethantired from the commercials, and my scores were 5 and 16. This is where I'm confused, on the 16 score it said something about high negative scores? Or something like that? Has anyone else taken it or know what it means? Because 16 isn't negative, but my results said I should see a sleep specialist. I need to know what to do. i'll have to find one that takes Medicaid, there's only one where I live. The others are in the DFW area - not shocking but I can get Medicaid transport to take me or something like they said they could if i'm out of town for an appt. What are your experiences with Narcolepsy? Can you explain for me? I just need to know if I should get tested or not, I don't wanna waste the appt. and Medicaid's time if it's nothing. But people worry that i'm napping from like 3-5 and then 7-9 at night. I sleep MORE than eight hours, I wake up the days my boyfriend works arounf 2ish to make him breakfast and pack his lunch for work. The days he doesn't work, we sleep. Needless to say my schedule is inconsistent. I felt a little better with the structured sleep schedule, sleeping at 9 waking up at 6-7 am. But I'm a night owl, I don't like going out during the day as I don't much like people and their stupid tendency to do things or at least the ones around me. I do my grocery shopping at night, because someone is almost ALWAYS running into me. And I get paid at night sometimes, or my boyfriend does. It's just preferred. Unless it's a store only open certain hours, unlike Walmart. The sunlight kind of pisses me off, and gives me headaches. I'm suppose to wear glasses because I've got an Astigmatism but lost two pairs two years ago, and need to go back and get more and a new test. I like the dark, and doing things in it. So, I rather not be up during the day unless I've got to be. I won't leave me house earlier than 5pm MAYBE,

Okay so I had my sleep study with mslt in november. At the time they decided not to take me off of my medications. The nighttime was fairly normal, aside from me falling asleep in 2 minutes. The mslt was very abnormal. (SSorry if I have said this already, I'm currently in withdrawls from lithium and wonder how I know my name!) I fell asleep on average 1.3 minutes and I had remdreams in 2/5 naps. Doc said I met the requirements for narcolepsy but the fact that I was on medication, we'll that was the only thing tainting that. He said he, personally, is convinced that I do have narcolepsy. His concern with doing a second mslt though was whether or not medicaid would cover xyrem and he does not believe it will. He said xyrem is the only difference in the treatment of the two disorders. He also said you do not have cataplexy as far as we are aware yet. In that moment I was struggling to recount a couple of instances where I started out being just sleepy in the office and decided to walk home and lay down. My husband walked with me when suddenly my legs felt weak and I collapsed and he caught me. He had to walk me the rest of the way because I felt weak. This happened a couple times but it was not caused by emotions. Is that still cataplexy? anyways, I didn't make it past the first sentence of my explanation because Iam in that scatter brained confused and can't remember jack state. I was hoping it would help him help me. Would it be a good idea to write it down and note it as being what I was trying to tell him? Next, he game me samples of nuvigil. Take 1/2 for 2 days then whole. I overheard him say " if this works it's narcolepsy". Does nuvigil only work for narcolepsy then? Needless to say I am loaded with questions I think....and I have no clue if anything I said Makes sense...it is quite the roller-coaster right now.

I finally went for a follow-up and my pcp and sleep clinic said everything seems to be pointing towards narcolepsy. They also say that is likely why I lost 3 1/2 miles of time right before my wreck this summer when I also fell asleep at the wheel this summer. I scored a 21 out of 24 on the sleep clinics questionnaire, and they said there were a lot of red flags for it so they have me scheduled for a sleep study on November 6-7 unless I end up having apnea. They also said that due to my bipolar meds being dream suppressing meds I should not be surprised if I have to retake the mslt test. I try to keep my night time sleep consistent at about 7-8 hours. The problem is, I stay sleepy the entire day and usually end up sleeping most of it unless I immediately get started on doing something and stay busy. As soon as I stop it's game over. There has even been a time or two when I was walking home with my husband and dropped everything in my hands and just collapsed into him because I was too tired to stand and started falling asleep. Anyways, my pcp said that a lot of the stimulant medications would likely make me manic! I've reduced my coffee intake in the mornings to only 1-2 cups but it's looking like caffeine may have to go completely. I don't know how to stay awake!! I have kids and I sleep the day away, but last night I did stay up late so I could experience something besides dreamland.... Does anyone have any pointers or advice?

I just finished doing a sleep study. One was psg and the other was mslt? They were checking for narcolepsy, but my admitting dx was hypersomnia. Anyways, I know with narcolepsy you can have hallucinations, auditory, visual, as well as olfactory. I have had at least one of each. The one dealing with my sense of smell is more of a distortion though. What should be a very unpleasant smell tends to smell rather delightful. I think it's called eusomia. Examples are usually dealing with poop! I smelled bacon at my in laws and they said there was no bacon but was probably dog poop I smelled. The next instance I walked inside my house and I smelled a strong scent of pancake syrup...I don't allow that because our twins paint the house with it....it smelled delicious though. It was everywhere, the smell was. I told my husband and he said the only thing I could be smelling was the babies because he had just changed their diapers! The other instance was this morning. I woke up to the heavy scent of pancake syrup again. I told my husband again and he said this time itcould only be the litter box. After a couple of hours the syrup smell went away and the litter box replaced it. Can you have scent distortions with hypersomnia like you can with narcolepsy?

Well I posted a couple of weeks ago that my doctor was looking into a possible diagnosis between seizures, narcolepsy, and migraines. I am still waiting to see how that goes. Wednesday I had my consult with the sleep clinic which flagged me a lot for narcolepsy, which may or may not be relevant as I know these intermesh a lot with each other. I have continued logging all of my seizure like episodes since I've noticed that they were more than just typical chills. If I knew how to link that post I would .The gist is for those who have not read it is it a chill like feeling in the back of my Neck, head and shoulders. My eyes would roll back and eye lids would flutter. Started out lasting roughly 2-3 seconds then progressed over time to 3-5 seconds. There was a cold shiver included with the eye roll and my head would snap backwards. As time passed by symptoms slowly progressed. Some nights I would have 5 or 6 back to back, mainly if I were in a vehicle that had wind and ac sometimes none. Seems to be triggered by wind and cool/cold air. I cannot induce it nor does it happen all the time. Afterwards, I am sometimes sick or have aa headache, but I am always sleepy for the rest of the day. I have continued to maintain awareness. In the last week or so my arms have begun to jerk upwards during these 'episodes' and shake a touch. Not long. Like I said they only last a couple of seconds. Now...the newest thing that would freak me out if I were not on an awesome bipolar regimen that squashes my anxiety..... Yesterday I had an epidose. The heat index was about 100 degrees and I was sitting in front of a huge fan trying to stay cool. Hair was pulled up. Next thing I knew my arms, shoulders, neck, and head tensed and jerked. My head snapped back. Eyes rolled. Lids fluttered. I can't remember if I felt the usual cold shiver or not because when my arms jerked upwards I felt a warm tingle that felt like electricity [best way I can describe it] go all the way to my finger tips of both arms. It matched perfectly. It was not painful like neuropathy, not pins and needles, just a warm electrical tingly feeling if that makes sense... I don't know how else to describe it. It started and stopped with the episode. Does anyone have any ideas on this???

maybe this is a long shot, but I was just wondering if anyone here had narcolepsy or its "twin", idiopathic Hypersomnia. most people have some idea of what narcolepsy is - IH is somewhat similar, possibly rarer, a disease where you never feel awake and you can sleep for 40 hours at a time. It's hell. I'm unsure of which one I have - I may have both. Luckily, I'm on non-stimulant meds that really work for them. Theyre atypical med choices, not well known at all, but they work! just wondering how other people with MI deal with severe sleep disorders like narcolepsy and IH. it certainly makes things interesting for me.

So I may have narcolepsy on top of my mood disorder, which is great fun. The two are interacting right now to make me a depressed mess. And I always get depressed in the spring/summer anyway. The meds for narcolepsy do nothing for me. But at least most of them don't make me manic, right? I feel that my life is a failure and I am inherently unlovable. Mood disorder along with a sleep disorder? What a mess I am.