Sleep is beneficial for health, as long as it is not overused. But sometimes the sleep is uncontrollable. This is what Wyatt Shaw, a seven-year-old boy from Elizabethtown, USA, who has slept 11 days in a row, begins at his uncle’s wedding, during which Wyatt dances to at the end of the night. The next day, he wakes up drowsy, with stomach aches and headaches. He eventually goes back to bed, but when his mother tries to wake him up, the little boy is completely lethargic. His family calls a doctor, who immediately transfers Wyatt to Norton Children’s hospital, located in Louisville. He then falls into a deep sleep which will last 11 days.
A battery of exams
The doctors, who fail to explain the condition of the little boy, then make him undergo a battery of tests, including three lumbar punctures, three MRIs, an angiogram, five electroencephalographies or even blood tests. But all the results are negative. The medical team then turned to the Mayo Clinic, located in Rochester and a specialist in London, and ended up waking the little boy with a medicine normally intended for patients with an epileptic seizure. Today, Wyatt still has difficulty speaking and walking, but his condition is improving day by day. However, the mystery surrounding his condition remains intact. “The London doctor said he had already seen a child sleep for 10 days without waking up and that there was a good chance that Wyatt would wake up, but that no diagnosis would ever be made,” concludes Rhonda Thompson, the grandmother of the little boy.Read also :Sleep disorders in children: the parents’ fault? 20 minutes less sleep each day for childrenSleep: to put your child to sleep, sleep!
