Fatal Familial Insomnia
This is probably by far one of the rarest forms of sleeping disorders around. This is an inherited condition that has only been found in 28 families in the world that have the prevalent gene for it. The offspring of a parent(s) of developing the disorder is about 50% and there is no treatment for this. The age of onset is around the ages between 30 and 60 and the disorder’s schedule runs between 7 to 18 months. This ailment has 4 stages that it experiences and 1st stage of the disease starts off with the sufferer handling increased insomnia leading to severe panic attacks, and various varieties of phobias, this stage lasts about 4 months, 2nd stage sufferer addresses hallucinations and panic attacks become more obvious and lasts about 5 months, 3rd stage Complete and total inability to sleep. And follows with drastic weight loss and lasts about 3 months, 4th stage Dementia sets in and progressively becoming irresponsive and mute over a course of 6 months and this is the final progression of the disease.
This sounds a lot like Alzheimer’s because if you notice the time frame it’s a lot less shorter than the actual time span of someone that addresses Alzheimer’s since the sufferer is addressing it for several years as opposed to a year where the ailment progressively degenerates the mental capabilities to such an academic degree that the sufferer has a difficult time with memory.
In as much as treatment cares sleeping pills don’t have any effect for people putting up with Fatal Familial Insomnia and not even non-medicinal therapy does not work either. Medical science has no idea why it’s a fatal disease and how they can create effective therapy options to fight this trouble. And more efficient genetic testing for diseases that are inherited to ascertain what can be carried out medicinally and therapeutically to treat this sleeping complaint.
It’s a matter of how much attention the medical world takes note of this and pushes the funding to finding a cure and effective genetic testing of families and tracking diseases through the generations to be able to have some type of record of the ailment passing down through generations or skipping generations that is what some diseases have done in some families when you have a disposition for certain things.
This doesn’t get nearly as much attention as all the other sleeping disorders as a result of it being rare, and only turning up in so many individuals and births making it not rare enough for it to get the recognition as regular insomnia and to be in line for the treatments. That are currently out there to help those 60 million people who are treating some form of sleeping disorder(s).
With the way medical science is going it can be a point of time before medicine catches up and helps the many people who are looking for a remedy of being deprived of a restful night’s sleep. The moment a cure is found is an extra person who will be helped to possess a good night’s rest.
Read more here in Sleep Disorders.
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