| Wyatt Shaw, 7 years old, did what many adults wanted; to sleep 11 days in a row without waking up and without disturbing him. His case has surprised doctors at Norton Children’s Hospital in the United States of America, who have not yet found the cause of the child’s drowsiness. Shaw was the one who stole the show at a family wedding 2 days before he fell into a deep sleep. He took the rings to the altar and during the party, he was in charge of having the fun. Everything went normal and that day he fell asleep exhausted. The next morning he awoke with a severe stomachache and headache. “It turns out he did not feel good … but we thought he had eaten too much wedding cake. He was dozing, unconscious, drinking water, and watching cartoons. Overall, everything seemed normal”, his grandmother told. The little boy went to sleep and when his mother tried to wake him, he did not react. “I tried to wake him up and he remained asleep. I shouted ‘Wyatt’ ‘Wyatt’ ‘Wyatt’ and then went back to sleep”, said Amy Thompson, the child’s mother. |
Amy took him to the hospital, worried about the situation. The doctors interned him and connected several teams to control his brain activity.
Wyatt underwent multiple MRIs, blood tests to determine if they were viruses, bacteria or a disease, but found nothing, only determined the behavior of a sleeping child. On the 10th day, the specialists applied a new medication to treat convulsions and it was until the following day when it reacted.
Although at 1st he could not move or talk about the effect of drugs, Wyatt returned to normal and now is a mystery to the experts, who have not stopped studying the case, which now goes around the world.
Although no syndrome has been diagnosed there are records of people who have slept for several days in a row. Such is the case of a 17-year-old Colombian is one of the few people in the world who suffer the Kleine-Levin syndrome.
Sandra can sleep for weeks. The young woman says that this does not always happen to her, that the episodes are repeated every 2 or 3 months, and that she has come to sleep between 10 and 15 days. “In February of this year, I broke the record and stayed 20 days asleep”, he said.
Beth Goodier is a 22-year-old British girl who is better known as Sleeping Beauty, but not for the reasons of the story.
Beth admits that living with the syndrome is very difficult, since she has to do in 2 hours what a normal person does in 24 hours. His mother says that her daughter spends 75% of her time sleeping. They also say that the most serious episode he has given him was when he spent 6 months sleeping.
What is the Kleine-Levin syndrome?
It is a rare disorder and is a clinical entity characterized by recurrent episodes of somnolence and neurovegetative alterations, as well as psychopathological alterations (changes in the level of consciousness, sensory-perceptive alterations, amnesic deficits).
Main symptoms of KLS
It is a very rare and episodic disease: it comes and goes in episodes that do not have a fixed repetition in time. Outside of the episode the patients have no symptoms and have a totally normal life.
The constant symptom in all cases is hypersomnia; this is the desire to sleep for many hours a day, for several days in a row.
In addition to hypersomnia, during the episode patients have an abrupt change in their behavior, presenting signs of:
– Apathy (lack of emotion)
– Derealization
– Cognitive alterations
– Perception of “being in a dream” permanently
– Irritability
– Ingestion of excessive food