Englishwoman Lily Clarke was only 17 years old when very strange things began to happen to her. An active and cheerful girl before, a student, preferred to everything in the world … to sleep. Three years have passed and the situation has not changed
Lily is the most ordinary British girl. But at 17, her life changed dramatically. She sleeps all the time, waking up only to eat and drink. She does not remember friends, past, and what is most terrible - she was diagnosed only after three years of almost continuous sleep.
Her mother says: “Three years ago, she came home from the rink and complained of 'strange sensations in my head.' I decided that my daughter had a cold. But Lily … fell asleep for 25 days, waking up very rarely to drink. Naturally, we were in a panic. Not a single doctor could understand what was happening to her. Three years of endless consultation, research, and no diagnosis. It was assumed that this is how migraine and depression manifested, but I saw that the doctors were completely at a loss. Miraculously, I myself learned about Louise Ball's illness and realized that the same thing was happening to my daughter. It was only in 2011 that Lily was diagnosed with Kleine-Levin syndrome.
The girl sleeps 23 hours a day. She is woken up to feed, drink, take to the toilet. According to her mother, when Lily is awake, she behaves like a small child - she is afraid to be alone, sucks her finger, does not part with a teddy bear. “The doctors do not offer us any treatment. It just doesn't exist. But we know that people were cured of "sleeping sickness" spontaneously, and we hope so, "says Lily's mother.
The scary tale of the "sleeping beauty" Louise Ball
In the photo: Louise Ball
Photo: Credit unknown / paranormal-news.ru
The girl, whose description of the disease clarified the condition of Lily Clark, is also from England. Parents, brother and friends call 15-year-old Briton Louise Ball "sleeping beauty", but this is not a compliment. In fact, the girl's life is not at all like a fairy tale - she suffers from an incredibly rare disease that leads to abnormal sleep disorders. Louise can sleep for two weeks in a row. And it is very difficult to wake her up.
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Because of her illness, she feels how life passes by her, and no night dreams can compensate for the brightness of real events. The Sleeping Beauty skips school exams and her favorite dance lessons, does not travel with the whole family on holidays or celebrate Christmas, and sometimes even wakes up her birthday.
The disease that Louise Ball suffers from is called Kleine-Levin syndrome. This sleep disorder, one of the types of hypersomnia, most often manifests itself in adolescents and is characterized by bouts of pathological drowsiness that can last for several weeks in a row. It is also called "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome", but this disorder is not limited to abnormal sleep: it is accompanied by bouts of bulimia and uncontrolled aggression before falling asleep and after waking up.
The first time Louise fell asleep for a week was in October 2008. This was preceded by an illness that was very similar in symptoms to the usual flu. “For about a week she had fever and suffered from headaches,” recalls the girl's mother. - No medicine helped. She never fully recovered. Only later did we learn that this painful condition is characteristic of the Kleine-Levin syndrome, it just precedes the next sleep attack. But before Louise was finally diagnosed, she and her family members had a lot of unpleasant experiences and fears. After the illness, which her relatives mistook for the flu, the girl looked emaciated, began to fall asleep at school, and her speech sometimes became completely incoherent, as if she were speaking in a dream. The parents took their daughter to the pediatrician at the local clinic, and he honestly admittedthat I have not seen such cases before. Louise underwent a full physical examination, which showed no physiological abnormalities. Then the doctor suggested that her unusual condition may be associated with hormonal surges in adolescence.
By that time, the girl had already begun to sleep for ten days. After 22 hours of uninterrupted sleep, her parents woke her up to feed and take her to the toilet. During these brief awakenings, their daughter acted like a somnambulist and then instantly fell asleep again. “It was very difficult, almost impossible to wake her up, but we knew we had to give her some food and water,” recalls Louise's father Richard. “We were in a hurry, literally stuffing food into her while she could still swallow it. But our daughter fell asleep right before our eyes, bowing her head on her shoulder and falling on the table."
If a girl is awakened during a sleep attack, she will move, walk and even talk, but then, falling back into sleep and spending a week or even ten days in it, she will not remember anything about her awakening.
About what kind of disease Louise suffers from, it became known only in March last year, when her parents took her to the specialists. Kleine-Levin syndrome is incurable, and scientists still do not know what factors lead to its development. The most common hypothesis links this sleep disturbance to malfunctioning of the hypothalamus, the part of the brain responsible for sleep and appetite. Young men are more susceptible to hypersomnia than girls. In some cases, patients heal on their own as they get older, while others have less sleep attacks over time and the unpleasant symptoms in between disappear.
Richard and Lottie Ball, who have a 14-year-old son in addition to Louise, have never heard of Kleine-Levin syndrome before. There is no cure for sufferers of this syndrome, although some doctors prescribe aphrodisiac drugs in such cases to keep patients active. At first, Louise was also offered to take pills, but they did not help her at all. Now the girl spends in oblivion for 12 days in a row. “We have already learned how to determine the approach of an attack. If Louise becomes irritable and eats a lot, it means that it will start soon”, - Richard Ball shares his experience. Most of all, the girl suffers from the fact that she is not able to take part in interesting and important events with her family.
“Because of her illness, she lags behind other students, misses tests, so she is very worried,” says her mother. “We hope that when it’s time for the final exams, the school will agree to let her take them between bedtime.”
Sleeping Beauty Syndrome
Kleine-Lewin syndrome is an extremely rare neurological disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of excessive sleepiness and behavior disturbances. Patients sleep most of the day (up to 20 hours, and sometimes longer), waking up only to eat and go to the toilet, become irritable or aggressive if they are not allowed to sleep. Patients have confusion, disorientation, loss of strength, apathy. Patients are unable to attend school or work, take care of themselves, and are bedridden. Cognitive impairments are characteristic, amnesia for events, hallucinations, and a dreamlike state are possible. Most patients complain that everything around them seems "out of focus", hypersensitive to noise and light.
