The teacher who fell asleep standing

Today’s story is one of a teacher who sought medical attention after an embarrassing encounter that left them not just embarrassed but scared that what they had ignored for so long was seemingly a serious problem they needed to dig deeper into. Dis they find the answer ? Tune in and go with us through this intense journey looking for an answer . 
#sleepdisorders #sleepiness #osa #narcolepsy #sleeplab #psg #mslt #sleepspecialist #mentalhealth

Transcript

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One of the most dedicated teachers in school was secretly battling something she could not explain. A battle that caused her to fall asleep while reading papers during meetings at family dinners, and one day while standing in front of a classroom. For years people assumed she was tired, stressed, or lazy. Hello everyone, and welcome to the another episode of this podcast, the Sleep Lab Stories. If you're new here, thank you for choosing to spend this time with me. And if you've been here before, thanks for your continued and um consistent support. Today's story is about a woman who spent years apologizing for something she couldn't control until one day she went down a rabbit hole searching for answers, and that's how she ended up um calling in a sleep lab for consultation and getting a bit of an insight into what was going on. And uh, for the sake of giving this story a life, we will name this teacher Nia. Nia was admired by colleagues, students, and parents. She worked hard and cared deeply about her students. Yet every afternoon she felt an overwhelming force pulling her towards sleep despite having regular eight hours sleep. Like the way we say, an average an adult should get like eight hours of sleep. So despite all that, she still felt tired, like some kind of tiredness that was not ordinary. She actually kind of felt ashamed and blamed herself for not trying hard enough. As a child, she was always labeled as lazy and at some point suspected during her teenage years to be pregnant because her symptoms really mirrored what mostly women in pregnancy um do talk about, like fatigue, constant um feeling the need to sleep mostly during the day and also restlessness uh while sleeping at night. And she by then couldn't defend herself or give an explanation to whatever was going on, so she tried drinking coffee, energy drinks, exercise, diets, and even tried some sleep uh devices like buying some wearables that she thought would improve her sleep, but nothing seemed to help. Friends joked about her ability to fall asleep anywhere, and eventually her co-workers suggested she needed better time management. The assumption mostly everyone going through something similar gets it's like maybe she they don't get to sleep enough, or maybe they don't get to sleep early, they need to probably uh manage their time well, when to go to sleep, when to wake up, so that they don't sleep at work. Meanwhile, she was already sleeping the eight to nine hours every night and barely able to do anything during the day. One afternoon while teaching her ninth grade learners, she felt the familiar wave of sleepiness. She tried to push through, but suddenly drifted off for a few seconds while standing in front of her students. Of course, as one would expect, the student burst out laughing and giggling, and the embarrassment was so overwhelming that she thought she finally needed to do something about this. And the fear even was greater that finally this um heavy burden of sleeping has caught up with her even while doing one of her favorite things in the world, which was teaching. After the afternoon incident, she stopped driving long distances, avoided social events, and even became anxious whenever she had to sit quietly for long periods. She feared something serious was wrong but had no answers. New remembered episodes where deep emotions like excitement or laughing would cause her knees to weaken or neck to suddenly drop. She actually assumed everyone experienced this kind of uh reactions with the connected with such intense emotions. When she explained this to the physician, the recommendation was to definitely have her sleep um looked deeper or more um analyzed, and that's how she got to stay uh to have the overnight sleep study done. And of course, being at the lab, it was she was a bit worried. What if no answer would come out of this, what if the way she had spent a couple of years before seeing different specialists and didn't even get an answer, what if this also ends up like that? So on the night at the sleep lab, she got the usual admission procedure and eventually had different sensors mounted to her. And um, thankfully, at the lab she got the support she needed. Most of the technicians and even the nurses got to talk to her, or rather, the the regular conversations or the admission process made it a bit easier for her to calm down, and she was able to settle a bit. So um this night she had uh sleep monitored, including the brain activities while she was breathing. I mean, while she was sleeping, the breathing, the heart rhythm, and also um the oxygen saturation was monitored through the night. The next day she was scheduled for a daytime nap, also as part of um what doctor recommended, which are uh testing of the naps, or rather, also monitoring the daytime naps in uh uh like every 20. I mean they are 20 minutes every two hours, and this is the test that is um called the multiple sleep latency test that is usually done after the first diagnostic night in the lab when recommended. When reviewing the results with a physician, yeah was observed to have irregularities in her sleep pattern. The sudden falling asleep could now be explained and also finally a diagnosis to Nia's condition made. Turns out she had a condition called narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder affecting the brain's regulation of sleep and wakefulness. For the first time she felt a sense of deep relief. Not just because she found a diagnosis, but that someone finally listened to her and did not dismiss as her symptoms or her words or her trying to explain what she's been going through as something made up or laziness or avoiding uh to work or to go to school as it has been all her life, especially from the time she was a teenager when these um symptoms got worse. She started the treatment immediately, which by the way doesn't mean that everything was solved overnight, but at least she got a bit of control over how this condition was um affecting her life. Through medications, scheduled apps, and support, she gained confidence and was no longer ashamed to tell people whenever uh or whoever cared to listen about her condition, and of course, with the aim of creating awareness and not to overexplain herself like she had been doing before. And also, this does not mean she got the help from friends and family or co-workers immediately, but at least she didn't have to hide in the bathroom anymore to take naps, or she didn't have to feel like she like something was wrong with her in terms of maybe she was just making this up or pretending. People live with invisible sleep disorders that affect work, relationships, school, and eventually mental health. At times we are also too harsh on ourselves when going through something like this. So, understanding a condition one is having is already many many steps uh towards getting a solution. So, I thank you again for tuning in on today's episode. I hope you have learned a thing or two from this episode and that it had brought it it has brought a bit of enlightenment towards some of the conditions or some of the disorders in sleep that anybody around us could be having. So next time you see that co-worker drifting off, dozing off, don't it's before making conclusions that they are lazy or they are poor in managing their time, you can maybe start a conversation if they could be having something more to it, of course, not in an intrusive way, but from a curious, curious point of view, and also mostly um a problem like this is very common in schools where students feel also not understood, where teachers also take them as maybe lazy or not liking their subject and take it very personal. So the next time you could be seeing maybe a school student or a learner in your class falling asleep before making conclusions, make the effort or the step to understand what they could be going through. Feel free to share this with anyone who you think could benefit from this, and also um leave a comment or any suggestion on what you think about this episode. And for the next episode, we'll share similar stories from the lab. I hope you enjoy and learn something from them. Have a good time and take care of the video.