What you say is true about certain diseases. There may be a flurry of attention about it for a while, then the wave subsides, when the disease can be controlled to some degree.
Aids is like that now. Diabetes too.
I was never diagnosed with narcolepsy, but probably had it.
The symptoms were not treated directly until I got help for asthma. I’m surprised I wasn’t fired back then for dozing off on the job. At that time, I was a teacher’s aide disabled students. To be honest, some of the classes were so boring I had to fight to stay awake.
Narcolepsy is quite literally caused by ‘brain damage’ which caused by the immune system attacking cells in the hypothalamus which controls the sleep cycle. It is incurable. Unless, you’re having some really strange symptoms like suddenly (and temporarily) losing muscle strength, or having hallucinations (some narcoleptics can be both asleep and awake at the same time, which allows dreams to intrude on reality), then you probably have/had something more mundane like sleep apnea.