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Here's a strange case:
The real-life Sleeping Beauty who snoozes for TWO weeks at a time
By Lucy Laing
Last updated at 2:14 AM on 11th February 2010
She is known to her family and friends as 'Sleeping Beauty' - but her life is no fairytale.
Louisa Ball, 15, sleeps for two weeks at a time because she suffers from an incredibly rare disorder.
She misses school exams, dance lessons and even missed an entire week’s holiday away with the family as she slept the whole way through.
Louisa, who lives in Worthing, has been diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome - also known as Sleeping Beauty Disease - where sufferers can fall into deep sleeps that can last for weeks.
She first developed the disorder in October 2008 after recovering from a bout of flu.
Her mother Lottie, 45, said: ‘She had a dose of flu that lasted for about a week but she never really recovered properly from it.
‘We afterwards found out that it was the start of a sleep mode, which comes before the deep sleeps.
‘She was exhausted and didn’t seem to be getting any better. She started to fall asleep at school and was rambling about things that didn’t make sense - just like she was talking in her sleep.
‘It really scared us, we didn’t know what to do. It just didn’t seem like Louisa was the daughter we used to know - she was like a different person.’
Louisa was referred to Worthing General Hospital in November that year and the paediatric consultant there told the couple that he didn’t know what was wrong with Louisa, but it may be hormonal.
By then Louisa was sleeping for ten days at a time. She would sleep deeply for 22 hours, then her parents would wake her just long enough to give her some food and take her to the toilet, then she would fall back to sleep.
Her father Richard Ball, 44, a surveyor, said: ‘She couldn’t do anything but sleep. She couldn’t go to school for days at a time when she was asleep.
‘It was very hard to wake her but we knew that we had to give her food and water. We would hurry to get her to eat her food whilst we could, but she would always be rambling and wouldn’t make any sense.
‘It was like she was sleep walking and talking in the times we did manage to wake her up. After she had been asleep for a week or ten days, she wouldn’t remember anything about it.’
Louisa was referred to St George’s Hospital in Tooting in March last year and a Consultant Paediatric there eventually diagnosed her with Kleine-Levin Syndrome.
The syndrome is a rare form or periodic hypersomnia, where sufferers have periods of prolonged sleep.
Doctors don’t know what causes it, although it is thought it may be related to malfunction of the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that governs appetite and sleep.
It is more common in males than females and usually disappears in adulthood, and between sleep periods the sufferer recovers completely.
etc...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0fJhbirWR
The real-life Sleeping Beauty who snoozes for TWO weeks at a time
By Lucy Laing
Last updated at 2:14 AM on 11th February 2010
She is known to her family and friends as 'Sleeping Beauty' - but her life is no fairytale.
Louisa Ball, 15, sleeps for two weeks at a time because she suffers from an incredibly rare disorder.
She misses school exams, dance lessons and even missed an entire week’s holiday away with the family as she slept the whole way through.
Louisa, who lives in Worthing, has been diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome - also known as Sleeping Beauty Disease - where sufferers can fall into deep sleeps that can last for weeks.
She first developed the disorder in October 2008 after recovering from a bout of flu.
Her mother Lottie, 45, said: ‘She had a dose of flu that lasted for about a week but she never really recovered properly from it.
‘We afterwards found out that it was the start of a sleep mode, which comes before the deep sleeps.
‘She was exhausted and didn’t seem to be getting any better. She started to fall asleep at school and was rambling about things that didn’t make sense - just like she was talking in her sleep.
‘It really scared us, we didn’t know what to do. It just didn’t seem like Louisa was the daughter we used to know - she was like a different person.’
Louisa was referred to Worthing General Hospital in November that year and the paediatric consultant there told the couple that he didn’t know what was wrong with Louisa, but it may be hormonal.
By then Louisa was sleeping for ten days at a time. She would sleep deeply for 22 hours, then her parents would wake her just long enough to give her some food and take her to the toilet, then she would fall back to sleep.
Her father Richard Ball, 44, a surveyor, said: ‘She couldn’t do anything but sleep. She couldn’t go to school for days at a time when she was asleep.
‘It was very hard to wake her but we knew that we had to give her food and water. We would hurry to get her to eat her food whilst we could, but she would always be rambling and wouldn’t make any sense.
‘It was like she was sleep walking and talking in the times we did manage to wake her up. After she had been asleep for a week or ten days, she wouldn’t remember anything about it.’
Louisa was referred to St George’s Hospital in Tooting in March last year and a Consultant Paediatric there eventually diagnosed her with Kleine-Levin Syndrome.
The syndrome is a rare form or periodic hypersomnia, where sufferers have periods of prolonged sleep.
Doctors don’t know what causes it, although it is thought it may be related to malfunction of the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that governs appetite and sleep.
It is more common in males than females and usually disappears in adulthood, and between sleep periods the sufferer recovers completely.
etc...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0fJhbirWR