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#NarcolepsyStories: Mike Guthrie

Mike Guthrie is a past member of the charity’s board of trustees.

Mike has had narcolepsy with cataplexy since his teens, and wasn’t diagnosed until he was in his second year of university at about 22.

In spite of this, Mike qualified as a lawyer and works in the Real Estate Department at the top-tier Scottish law firm Burness Paull LLP. He is currently a Partner and the Head of Home Sales, responsible for overseeing all of the residential sales and any associated purchases for the firm’s housebuilder clients in Scotland. He supervises teams across the firm’s three offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

With his other hat on, he is also the firm’s Innovation Partner and he is responsible for driving forward the use of technology in the firm.

In his spare time, Mike likes to run and cycle and he has completed the London marathon twice to raise funds for Narcolepsy UK.

Mike also has a 15 year old daughter and a 9 month old daughter. The youngest providing a new challenge to manage his Narcolepsy on even less sleep than before!

11th February 2026

This post is part of Narcolepsy UK’s #NarcolepsyStories project, where people with narcolepsy write frankly about what it’s like to live with this debilitating disability.

Narcolepsy is a spectrum disorder that affects everyone differently. However, people with narcolepsy will always find they have a lot in common, sharing their experience of the difficulty in securing a diagnosis, the years it takes to find a suite of medications that helps combat symptoms, the effect that extreme sleepiness can have on education, work and relationships and impact that cataplexy can have on confidence.

It is our hope at Narcolepsy UK that the #NarcolepsyStories project will contribute to our vision as set out in the #NarcolepsyUKCharter to provide the respect, care and support that people living with narcolepsy and their carers deserve.

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