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Head and Sleep

Sunday 18 November 2007

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The « hypo-sleep syndrome » expresses itself, at the head’s level, through a various range of symptoms which possess all characteristics of the functional disorders.

In some subjects, the repetition or the intensity of the attacks gives cause to numerous complementary explorations (blood balance, scanner...) at the issue of which the absence of an organic cause is asserted. Thus, the attention only focuses on the treatment of the symptoms but tiredness is rarely gone into.

The great variability of the clinical forms most often leads to several sorts of specialized consultations : neurologist (migraines, neuralgia), ophtalmologist (intolerance to screens), ear-nose-throat doctor («sinusitis», sore throat, tinnitus, dizzy spells), rheumatologist (cervical arthrosis), gastroenterologist (socalled (in French) «liver attack»), cardiologist (palpitations), dermatologist (acne, prurit, breaking hair) and so on...
See "Functional disorders".

The great variability of medical opinions (which apply the biomedical model) sometimes leads to «false true-sick» status. The patient will (erroneously) link his/her symptoms to a lesional support. Tired patients can then uselessly become preoccupied by their tension, their blood circulation, osteoporosis, sight, teeth or magnesium (etc.) in order to control their troubles. Elsewhere, it is sometimes alternative medicine which (finally...) brings an «explanation», but the enhancement never lasts.

It may also happen that someone who is willing to take care of him/herself, decides at that occasion to "start a new life" and enhances (amongst others, and thus without paying much attention to it) his/her sleep hygiene... If that person gets better, she will think that the obtained result is due to the alternative medicine.

The caretaking of the functional disorders relies on the postulate that the sick person suffers from an unefficient sleep. The symptom, which should be considered like an alarm sign, expresses itself every time a treshold of excessive tiredness is reached. It is, for example, therefore that a subject who suffers from migraine is always in a situation of overwork, but he/she only becomes aware of it when the seizure forces him/her to rest. They recover without sequellae as soon as the sick person has, in some way, paid back his/her sleep debts.