‘Laughing sends me to sleep’
DISORDER’S NO JOKE
BELLA Kilmartin’s rare medical condition sends her to sleep when she laughs.
She has nodded off in nightclubs and almost drowned in a swimming pool.
Bella said: “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.”
The 24-year-old was diagnosed with narcolepsy when she was a teenager after falling asleep in exams.
She also suffers from a linked condition called cataplexy – sudden muscle weakness triggered by strong emotions, in Bella’s case laughing.
She said: “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.” Bella did her own research as a teenager after struggling to keep her eyes open in class and suggested to her family doctor that she could have the chronic sleep disorder narcolepsy. She was officially diagnosed just before she left school in 2015 and started to see a specialist, who found she had the linked condition cataplexy too.
The pharmacy dispenser, from Great Barr, Birmingham, said: “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. “It has now progressed into full muscle weakness when I laugh. It’s more when it’s something that I wasn’t expecting to be funny. It’s more than a little giggle.”
Of evenings out during her time at university, she said: “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.”
Bella added: “I didn’t know anybody with narcolepsy when I was diagnosed. “Reading about other people’s experiences has really helped me, so that’s why I wanted to share my story.”