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Q. For many years, from age 25 to 45, I experienced the horrifying feelings that I now have learned are associated with "sleep paralysis." I never knew what it was and had no one to ask about it. Luckily, I have not experienced it in the last five years.
My daughter, who is 21, has begun to experience the same symptoms. I have no answers for her questions. When she asked the nurse practitioner about it, she was told only that she would have to go to a sleep clinic for advice. I know how scary this can be. Is there a way to treat sleep paralysis?
A. In sleep paralysis, a person almost wakes up, is aware of the surroundings in the room, but is unable to move or speak. It can be very frightening, but it is not dangerous and doesn't require treatment. This condition can run in families, so it is not surprising that your daughter is following in your footsteps.
An episode of sleep paralysis usually lasts only seconds and generally disappears with a bed partner's touch. If the episodes are frequent or troublesome, she might ask the doctor about a prescription antidepressant. According to sleep expert Martin Scharf, Ph.D., such a drug will generally suppress sleep paralysis.
Here is another person's take on this same problem:
Q. You mentioned that anti-depressants might help someone if his sleep paralysis got too bad.
I've had sleep paralysis for years. It's one of the symptoms of narcolepsy and often occurs along with hallucinations. They make a great pair--burglars creep into your house and madmen wave axes as you struggle to move even one muscle to defend yourself.
My husband would patiently take my pulse and blood pressure after an incident and show me that my dream terrors didn't affect them at all. Eventually I learned to cope with them when I realized that any REAL noise or touch woke me up immediately and dispelled the paralysis. I found that I could consciously enter the dream state and say "get a grip, girl, you KNOW you leap right out of bed when something is actually there."
It's cheaper and easier than anti-depressants and has no side effects.
A. Sleep paralysis can be very scary because you are virtually awake, aware of your surroundings, but unable to cry out or move. For some, a gentle touch from a bed partner is enough to end the episode.
Your coping tactic is sensible. We agree that nondrug approaches are preferable, but others may need an antidepressant to overcome this incredibly frightening experience.
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I had Sleep paralysis for several years starting about age 20, and going off and on until I went to a sleep study, and was diagnosed with sleep apnea, and started CPAP therapy, which completely abated my sleep paralysis. All I know is Sleep Paralysis is a very scary thing...I would think I was having a stroke, and tried to wake someone else, but could not speak, move etc...I would recommend a SLeep study
I'm disturbed about the first section - We don't know what causes this, just take this expensive drug.
Several medications can cause nightmares as well as the symptoms you are describing. I was taking clonidine for BP for several years and the nightmares/sleep paralysis problem slowly got worse and worse to the point where I almost hated to go to bed at night. When I stopped taking that particular med, the sleep issues went away. Are you or your daughter taking any prescription or OTC meds? They may not be the cause of the problem, but it's at least worth investigating.
I have had sleep paralysis twice in my life and it was after accidentally taking too much synthroid. I would wake but could not open my eyes nor move. I was aware of everything else going on... how warm the room was etc. I would feel very panicky but not able to stop the dream nor wake up... It was frightening. Eventually I did wake up but only after I thought I would just not live through it and gave up the struggle to breath and open my eyes.
Has synthroid or any other thyroid medication effected anyone else this way?
I was having these same symptoms years ago. Did not know there was a name for these symptoms (sleep paralysis). Being awake but not being able to speak or move was very frightening. Some times I could feel the paralysis creeping up my legs and if I could move in time I could keep it from happening.
I cut out caffiene and anything with MSG from my diet and I have not had any of those episodes since. That has been about 20 years ago now.
Years ago I took Dristan at night. I woke up and could not move. I tried Dristan once more and the same thing happened. I referred to that as an allergy reaction for years. I was at a Doctors office in about 2005. I told him about my allergy and he said the problem was that the drug worked too well for me. The chlor (the antihistamine) in Dristan. I can never remember how to spell it. But since 2005 it has been on my medical records that I cannot have it. It can be a muscle relaxer and that is what it did to me is relax my muscles too much.
This only happened to me once when I was playing around with lucid dreaming. I was sleeping and realized I was dreaming. I woke up out of the dream, but was still in sleep paralysis - terrifying! Its important to know it's normal though. Your brain disconnects itself from your body when you're sleeping so that you don't act out what you're doing in your dreams... I found the way to get over it was just to fall back asleep...
My wife had had this problem for year and I never knew it was something with a name. Fortunately she makes slight noise when she is entering into these sort of dream states and I can shake her to wake her out of it. Sometimes I can catch her before she even is conscious she was in the dream. Unfortunately there can be 15-20 such events in rapid fire succession early in the night. We have tried many things but nothing seems to stop this from happening. Thank you for the info, at least now I can search for and find other info about this condition that we just chalked up to her having bad dreams.