Why 80% of sleep disorders go undiagnosed | Lindsay Scola | TEDxSonomaCounty

0:09 – 1:42

The Fog That Doctors Called Normal

At 16, sitting in a Yale summer school classroom, Lindsay Scola felt a fog roll in. Her thoughts fuzzed, her senses dulled, the world blurred like someone was slowly turning a dimmer switch on her brain. She'd pinch her thigh, tap her foot, once bit her tongue so hard it bled, anything to fight the overwhelming urge to sleep. Then a thought would hit her like a hammer: if I don't go to sleep right now, I'm going to die. She'd slip into a bathroom stall, lean her head against the wall, and fall asleep. When she told her family doctor, the response was instant and final: 'You're busy. Busy people are tired.' It felt dismissive, but also like some secret initiation into adulthood. Scola had big dreams, a lot to accomplish, so she figured she just had to get better at being awake. This became her framework for the next 19 years: exhaustion was normal, and if you were tired, you were doing it right. What she didn't know was that her tired was fundamentally different from everyone else's tired, and that difference would take nearly two decades to diagnose.