Shirley Koecheler, 54, has been a sleepwalker for as long as she can remember. But it wasn’t until she got married that she started eating in her sleep, too. She’d wander into the kitchen — eyes open but asleep — and binge on junk food.
Consequences of nighttime eating can include injuries like black eyes from walking into a wall or hand cuts from a prep knife, or dental problems from gnawing on frozen food. On a deeper level, many sleep eaters feel depressed, frustrated and ashamed. Upwards of 10 percent of adults suffer from some sort of parasomnia, or sleep disorder, like sleepwalkingor night terrors. Some have driven cars or performed inappropriate sexual acts — all while in a sleep-induced fog. About 1 percent, mostly women, raid the refrigerator.
Recent evidence also suggests that REM sleep behavior disorder may be an early harbinger of Parkinson’s disease or other neurodegenerative disorders linked to defects in the dopamine system in the brain. These clues have prompted some experts to use drugs like pramipexole (Mirapex) that boost dopamine levels to treat people who thrash in their sleep. In a small study published in Sleep Medicine, Dr. Markus H. Schmidt, the medical director of the Ohio Sleep Medicine Institute, found that pramipexole helped nine of 10 volunteers.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is that no one really understands what happens during sleep. As Dr. Winkelman explained, “Sleep is not the absence of wake. Your brain is active all night long. People think wake is like a room with the lights on and sleep is like the same room in the dark, but in the darkness a lot is going on.”
Thank Goodness, I do not have this symptom but my heart goes out to those who have this issue.
