Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Fifteen year old Louisa Ball has a rare condition called Sleeping Beauty Sickness – she sleeps for days at a time and nothing can fully wake her. There is no known cause of Sleeping Beauty Sickness, or cure. All the doctors know is that it strikes teenagers and goes away by itself after eight or twelve years.
Louisa suffered from flu like symptoms just over a year ago, then a few days later, fell into an extended and frighteningly deep sleep. She was eventually diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome, so rare that there have been no more than one thousand cases world wide. Louisa lives normally for weeks or months at a time, with normal sleep patterns and normal energy. Then, with almost no warning, she’ll fall asleep for days or weeks at a time. So far, Louisa’s longest nap has been thirteen days. During these long sleeps, patients like Louisa can rouse briefly, though they will always be disoriented and groggy. Louisa’s parents force her awake at intervals to eat and go to the bathroom.
Louisa’s friends, now used to their friend’s condition, can tell when she has an episode coming on. She gets grumpy and quiet. Then she knows she has to get home to her bed. Louisa is sleeping through a lot of things that teens treasure: vacations, dance recitals, parties. She even resents time missed doing school work and taking tests because it’s getting harder and harder to catch up when she’s been out.
Doctors have no idea where the syndrome comes from – some suppose that it’s set off by a viral infection that for some reason affects a teenager’s sleep center and lingers for years at a time.
“We think that some people are genetically predisposed to having an infection that then doesn’t clear up and seems to relapse regularly, and that gives the symptoms of sleeping all the time for days at a time,” Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, director of the Center for Narcolepsy at Stanford, told The Today Show.
All they do know is that, some day, Louisa will outgrow the disease and it will stop, as mysteriously as it began.
Comments
No comments.