Woman, 24, who falls asleep when she laughs almost drowned while swimming
A WOMAN who falls asleep when she laughs almost drowned while swimming.
Bella Kilmartin, 24, has been diagnosed with narcolepsy, a rare medical condition that in her case, causes involuntary sleeping after laughing.
The 24-year-old from Great Barr, Birmingham, has napped in nightclubs when out partying and even on her breaks at work after being diagnosed when she was a teenager.
On one occasion a giggle almost cost her life after she dozed off while in a swimming pool during a holiday.
Ms Kilmartin, who works as a pharmacy dispenser, also suffers from cataplexy, a linked condition where strong emotions-in her case, laughing- cause sudden muscle weakness.
She said: "It's more when its something that I wasn't expecting to be funny.
"It's more than a little giggle - it'd be something sudden when I wasn't expecting to be laughing.
"I lose control of all of my muscles, but only when I laugh.
"My knees go weak, my head droops. I’m conscious and aware and able to hear everything that is going on, but I just can’t move my body at all.
"There have been many times that I’ve knocked a hot cup of tea over myself but couldn’t move my arms to stop the tea going all over me.
"I can't control where it happens, so it can be quite scary. I don't mind it happening if I'm somewhere safe, like sat down. If I'm somewhere unsafe, it's quite scary.
"I would get tired and just sit down and then end up asleep in a nightclub.
"Something funny happened once in a pool – I don’t even know what – and I ended up starting to laugh.
"All of my muscles went weak and my head started drooping under the water.
"Luckily, my friend knew about my condition so she swam over and had to hold my head above the water so I wouldn’t drown.
"I wasn't even able to tread water as all of my muscles had gone weak.
"She had her hand under my chin to keep my head up and had to swim me over to the side of the pool.
"I was then starting to come out of it, because if I stop laughing, my muscles start to regain a bit of strength, but not straight away.
"I was trying to hold myself up on the side but even that wasn't working so my friend was literally just holding me up.
"It was terrifying at the time, and I'm very lucky she was there and able to hold me up."
Ms Kilmartin was diagnosed with the rare condition when she was a teenager after struggling to keep her eyes open and falling asleep during exams.
She then conducted her own research and suggested to her family doctor that she could have the chronic sleep disorder narcolepsy.
She was officially diagnosed in 2015 and started seeing a specialist, who found she had the linked condition cataplexy too.
She added: "When the cataplexy initially started, I’d feel light-headed when I laughed.
"Then it progressed so that my eyes would flicker and my eyelids would go all droopy.
"I didn't really know what that was at first - I was convinced I had some type of heart problem.
"As it has now progressed into full muscle weakness when I laugh, there have been so many incidents where I've hurt myself after losing control of my body."
Since then the Loughborough University graduate, has managed to adapt her life and activities around her condition.
The disorder meant that she had to stop taking driving lessons and not being able to go to the cinema as she always drifts off, as well as avoiding swimming pools.
What is narcolepsy?
Narcolepsy is a rare long-term neurological conditionthat affects the brain's ability to regulate a normal sleep-wake cycle and causes a person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times.
Which essentially means that those who suffer from the disorder don't have an inbuilt body clock.
While it was once thought of as a sleep disorder, narcolepsy is now considered an auto-immune disease caused by the destruction of certain cells within the brain by the immune system.
It's estimated to affect around 1 person in every 2,500, with approximately 30,000 people in the UK living with it.
There are four main symptoms of it:
- Excessive daytime sleepiness: falling asleep at inappropriate times throughout the day, or experiencing chronic sleepiness.
- Cataplexy: involuntary muscle weakness in response to emotions - attacks can be anything from mild facial weakness to the knees buckling and the body collapsing. A third of all narcoleptics don't have cataplexy.
- Sleep paralysis: the inability to move while being conscious, either when falling asleep or waking up from it.
- Hypnagogic hallucinations: vivid dream-like experiences.
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Ms Kilmartin said: "I really struggled with my condition when it first started happening because it can be embarrassing.
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"You look strange, people don't know what is going on, and I've had people describe it as it looks like I'm having a fit, so they panic, but I am fine.
"I didn't know anybody with narcolepsy when I was diagnosed and reading about other people's experiences has really helped me so that's why I wanted to share my story."