r/Narcolepsy • u/AccomplishedDish5649 • 3h ago
Diagnosis/Testing Got the diagnosis and everyone who invalidated me for 6 years can suck it
After 6 years, I (23f) have the answer to so many questions I spent years ruminating on. I’ve said I think I have an autoimmune condition throughout all of this time, and the only person who believed me was my doctor. Sadly, when you hear “autoimmune,” no one really thinks of Narcolepsy, so it never came to mind. I only began to consider this condition because I listed all of my not good symptoms in ChatGPT and asked it to group symptoms that might correlate together to talk to my PCP about, and it suggested inquiring about a sleep disorder.
And now, 4 months later, here we are. All of those years, being told that my weight, fatigue, constant napping, mood regulation, irregular cycles, were all due to my diet, bipolar disorder (a disorder I don’t even have), trauma, whatever anyone could come up with. Being told my naps were dissociation attempts, and that I was lazy. The only people who 100% without a doubt believed me were my doctors. They knew that I understand my body, and they were certain that we just hadn’t figured out what was wrong yet. We looked into hypothyroidism, and then PCOS/PMOS, and then hashimotos, and kept going and finding nothing. At 18 years old I was brushed off, but now we know what was going on, and I’m so grateful. I was in choir practice at my church and saw the results on a break, and broke down crying because of the relief, because now we know with certainty what’s wrong, which means now we have ideas of solutions moving forward.
Orexin is down but hopefulness is UP!!