Is Narcolepsy a Neurodegenerative Disease?

[mikaela50]

If Narcolepsy is cause by the lack of a neuropeptide or hormone:
Orexin/Hypocretin, What is so difficult in just replacing what is missing? By means of a bio-identical replacement. It is easily synthesized and crosses the BBB by simple diffusion: injection in Dogs, inhalation in rats. Why after almost ten years are symptons being treated not the cause?

[kaznev]

Go ask your doc for some testing for hormones etc to see if you are out of whack.  I had narcolepsy with cataplexy many years ago.  I have now got complex sleep apnea.  I decided to look for a cause.  I found I was short in cortisol, potassium and vitamin B!2

[debsbiz]

I beleive we can cure ourselves . I also have narcolepsy and cataplexy. But worst of all I have a terrible problem with sleep walking.I have been doing this for over 4 years. Ive broke my nose 3 times and over 50 concussions.I cant find  help ,and Im scared Im going to die. I fall asleep even while just bending over. So many strange incidents too many to mention. However, never doing a sleep study. Although ,we discoverd my sleep apnea. I have about 40 episodes an hour.  Anyway this is my first reply to anything on line!

[oldie]

bless you. you really have a problem. You say you can cure yourself. I hope it works out
0ldie

[Dr_Smita_S]

Hi,
According to research, narcolepsy is due to lack of hypocretin which is a chemical in the brain. However, the cause of lack of hypocretin is not known (can be due to infection, brain injuey, toxins, stress etc)

Research is being done on hypocretin replacement but the available molecules are effective at higher dose ranges and have a short lasting effect. For effective human usage development of centrally penetrable hypocretin agonists (i.e., small molecular synthetic agonists) is needed. (Ref : http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=17470414)

Do write in if you need any other information.
Regards.

[MJIthewriter]

This looks like an old post (posted in October last year, but interesting.