Narcolepsy with Cataplexy a Vitamin D Deficiency

Kitty | Oct 11, 2011 |

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Have you ever watched the1988 movie The Serpent and the Rainbow when actor Bill Pullman gets caught up in black magic looking for a new anesthetic drug only to end up as a semi-conscious zombie? This drug makes the subject appear dead but they are fully aware of all their senses. Narcolepsy with cataplexy is when people actually experience this “zombie-like” symptom or attack. Allison Burchell has been pronounced dead three times. Now a woman in her 60’s she first experienced narcolepsy cataplexy (NC) at the age of 17 while watching a movie with Abbott and Costello. NC is a rare medical condition with an irresistible urge to fall asleep and loses all muscle control so it appears they are no longer alive. While Allison was laughing she found she couldn’t move even though she could still hear the film and the audience around her. She was taken from the theater, fully aware of what was happening, while nurses that believed she was dead prepared her body for the mortuary. She could hear everything, but was unable to tell them she wasn’t dead. Eventually she came around, sat up, found that she was amongst corpses. When an attendant came in he was more shocked than she was.

NC is triggered by extreme emotion including laughter, anger, excitement and fear. After months of testing Allison was diagnosed with NC and a few years later suffered from another attack only to end up in the morgue again. Her third attack happened after she was married with four children. Her 15 year son, Stephen, begged paramedics not to put his mother into an airtight fridge unit because he knew that would really kill her. The medical staff adhered to her son’s wishes and was put in a side ward until she eventually came around.

NC attacks can last a few minutes or up to half an hour with symptoms ranging from a dropping jaw to a total collapse. The sufferer continues to breath and their heart does not stop. Allison’s severity of her NC is very rare. Many narcoleptics never deal with being pronounced dead, but it is not impossible, in severe cases, to fall into a coma-like state.

NC is thought to be an autoimmune-mediated disorder in which environmental/emotional risk factors trigger an attack. Research has proposed that a vitamin D deficiency plays a role in autoimmune diseases and scientists have explored the relationship between this deficiency and NC. They found that there is a higher frequency of vitamin D deficiency with those with NC, but further studies are necessary to assess how vitamin D impacts the development of narcolepsy, as it is still unclear. Little is known how environmental factors or emotions triggers NC. Vitamin D deficiency has been seen in other autoimmune skeletal and cardiovascular diseases, especially multiple sclerosis (MS). MS and NC are closely related with a MS gene that is genetically linked to a NC gene in Caucasians. Recent studies support that a vitamin D deficiency is a key factor to the onset of MS, but the interaction between vitamin D and NC needs to be further assessed.

A deficiency of vitamin D for those with NC may be the result of less sun exposure due to afternoon sleepiness. Although afternoon naps maybe brief and unlikely to cause a significantly less time outdoors, studies were unable to obtain sun exposure data therefore the information needed to determine why NC sufferers have a vitamin D deficiency were unclear. Furthermore, participants in the studies were unable to give a record of sun exposure as a youth or during gestation. Also the analysis could not control how much vitamin D was consumed in their diet . The next steps are to study the potential to correct the vitamin D deficiency in those with NC with the objective of limiting the onset of the zombie-like attacks.