Real life "Sleeping Beauty"
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15-year-old Louisa Ball is a real life "sleeping beauty" - when she takes a nap, she can sleep for days at a time. Her longest sleeping episode to date lasted 13 days.
However, her life is no fairy tale. During her sleeping episodes, her parents, Richard and Lottie Ball, have to force her awake to make her go to the bathroom, and force-feed her in order to keep her alive.
In an interview with NBC News, Lottie says that her daughter's first bout of extended sleeping happened after she experienced flu-like symptoms in 2008. "We couldn't wake her up. . . She couldn't have the energy to just open her eyelids," she said.
The British teenager reportedly suffers from a strange medical condition called Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS), otherwise known as "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome". This rare neurological disorder strikes teenagers and causes sufferers to fall into extended episodes of sleep or altered behavior. They may wake briefly, but they will be disoriented, confused or apathetic. In between episodes, sufferers are able to live and function normally.
Because of her illness, Louisa has had to miss school, social activities and dance recitals. The teenager experiences an episode every four to five weeks, and each episode is often preceded by noticeable changes in her behavior.. Friends and family now recognize the warning signs - she becomes very quiet and she may be irritable.
Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, psychiatry professor and director of the Center for Narcolepsy at Stanford University, told TODAY that Kleine-Levin Syndrome may be triggered off by a viral infection that affects a teenager's sleep center and stays in the body for years. This infection does not clear up, but regularly relapses, causing the patient to sleep for days at a time.
However, he clarified that "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome" is not the same as narcolepsy - a chronic sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness.
"Narcolepsy patients. . . just sleep all the time, and they have difficulty staying awake. It's a lifetime disorder. Once you have narcolepsy, you have it for life, whereas (in Kleine-Levin Syndrome), it's episodic. It's on, off, on, off. And that's what's really dramatic," says Dr Mignot.
The dramatic condition is so uncommon that there may be less than 1,000 victims worldwide. Doctors still don't know what causes Sleeping Beauty Syndrome or how it can be cured. However, most patients do grow out it - the condition seems to go away by itself after eight to 12 years, often when the sufferer is in his twenties.
Hopefully, Louisa's "fairy tale" will have a happy ending.
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This news so long ago liao.
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i conclude that Roney is really Horney....
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i conclude that Roney is really Horney....
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y horny???????
Lolx wtf 13 days ? -
Originally posted by Bus&Soccer l0v3r (VO3x 1):
y horny???????
Lolx wtf 13 days ?i thought it rhyme with
Ro...ney .......to......Hor..ney
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She's prolly waiting for Rooney9 to kiss her so that she can awaken but Rooney9 will then have to turn into a toad..............Hahahahaha