Sleep Home > Narcolepsy Support Groups
For people with narcolepsy, support groups can provide a network of social contacts who can offer practical help and emotional support. The empathy and understanding that support groups offer can be crucial to a person's overall sense of well-being as he or she copes with the disorder. These groups may offer support in person, over the telephone, or on the Internet.
Living with narcolepsy is not easy. Many patients attempt to avoid experiencing strong emotions, since humor, excitement, and other intense feelings can trigger cataplectic attacks.
Also, because of the widespread lack of public knowledge about the disorder, people with narcolepsy are too often unfairly judged as lazy, unintelligent, undisciplined, or unmotivated. Such stigmatization often increases the tendency toward self-imposed isolation. A lot of people with narcolepsy find support groups helpful.
The empathy and understanding that support groups offer to people with narcolepsy can be crucial to a person's overall sense of well-being; support groups can also provide a network of social contacts who can offer practical help and emotional support. In these support groups, patients or their family members get together to share what they have learned about coping with narcolepsy and the effects of treatment.
Patients may want to talk with a member of their healthcare team about finding a support group that deals with narcolepsy. Support groups may offer support in person, over the telephone, or on the Internet.