[Carls]

Hi

people say to me if you didn’t sleep as you say you do you would be dead.

If you truly never sleep would it kill you?

as I’ve read books where experiments on rats were done and the sleep deprived rats died.

also somthing called genetic fatalitiy insomnia which killed people.

[SIimon]

Yes it would kill you but unless you have FFI your body would eventually force sleep on you at some point…

[Steve]

Eventually, probably yes. But as Martin says, you truly “don’t ever sleep”. The type of genetic condition you are talking about is very, very, VERY rare. It is called Fatal Familial Insomnia and only about 40 families worldwide have the gene that can cause this. And just because your family may have the gene, you still only have about a 50-50 chance of getting the condition. There are other pryon illnesses that can cause a person to never sleep such as picking up a human form of mad cow disease, also very, very rare. There also was an outbreak in England, back in the 1980’s I believe, of children who were given Human Growth Hormone from human donors who had the illness but once they figured out what was happening, only synthetic, lab produced Human Growth Hormone has been used. Therefore, that path has died out. Lastly, there was an outbreak of that type of disease from neurological instruments that were used in surgery on people who had illnesses of that type but once that was figured out, better sterilization methods were used and that path was also closed.

I know all about this because when I first started getting insomnia, I was convinced I might have this problem although nobody in my family ever had it. Also because right after I had a neuro procedure done, I started having my bouts with insomnia. When we first get insomnia, many of us start researching what possible medical condition we can have. I finally just realized after reading boards like these that I am far from alone and I most likely just had regular insomnia like a lot of other people on here. And when I say “regular”, I don’t mean to trivialize it as we are all suffering from something that has curtailed our lives.

[Edgar]

I think it’s highly unlikely that you sleep that little, there’s probably some of that sleep misperception thing that everybody mentions thrown in there . Also, you probably doze off often during the day but don’t take it into account when talking about your sleep.

Still, it must be really tough to go through what you are describing. Amazing how insomnia can just turn up out of the blue and linger on for so long. That’s why I think it should finally be recognized as an illness in and of itself, not always a symptom of anxiety , depression or some other thing.

 

[Martin Reed]

Sleep is like breathing — we can suspend sleep (just as we can suspend breathing), but eventually, the body takes over and forces us to sleep (or breathe).

Chronic insomnia will not kill you. In fact, there is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes any health problem whatsoever. Yes, chronic insomnia feels awful and living with insomnia is not pleasant and it can make the day more difficult and have a very real negative effect on quality of life.

So, it’s important to take steps to get your sleep back on track. However, it’s not helpful to worry about insomnia leading to death — because it doesn’t. Your body will force you to sleep before there is any risk of you dying from sleep deprivation.

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[Author]

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