Symptom 14. Sleep Disturbances: The Rest-Stealing Consequences of Amyloidosis
Amyloidosis doesn’t limit itself to waking hours; it intrudes upon the sanctity of sleep, leading to a myriad of disturbances. It’s like having a boisterous party happening in your body while you’re trying to get some restful sleep.
Amyloidosis’ influence on sleep can take on many forms, such as insomnia or excessive sleepiness, to the extreme of sleep apnea. It’s as though your body’s natural sleep-wake rhythm has been tossed into the sea, leaving you grappling with inconsistent and inadequate sleep.
For some, the challenge could be falling asleep, as if a switch has been flipped, and despite exhaustion, sleep remains elusive. For others, staying asleep is the battle, with frequent awakenings fragmenting their rest. And then there are those who struggle with both, a nightly fight to achieve restorative sleep.
In the more extreme cases, amyloidosis can cause sleep apnea. Here, the amyloid protein invades the tissues of the throat, causing them to narrow or collapse during sleep. This leads to periods of breathing cessation, forcing you out of deep sleep. It’s like being jolted awake just as you’re about to drift off into a dream.
These sleep disturbances are more than just nightly battles for rest. They are subtle whispers of the underlying amyloidosis, a covert symptom of the silent enemy lurking within your body. (14)
