Sleeping beauty
22 July, 2012
Reporter: Rahni Sadler
Producer: Ali Russell
Bouts of trance-like sleep that can last for days, weeks – even months. This extraordinary behaviour is a sad reality for about 1000 people around the world, including three Australians, who suffer from one of the world’s most bizarre neurological conditions. It’s called Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS), or ‘Sleeping Beauty disease’.
Doctors know little about KLS, but believe it could be triggered by something as simple as the common cold. It’s believed to have something to do with the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls the sleep, wake and hunger cycles. It usually strikes victims in their teens and can last for more than a decade.
Sunday Night visited one of the handful of Australians suffering from the condition, a Tamworth teenager who spends almost half of every year asleep. Analeigh Bradbery was nearing the end of year 10 when we visited her but had decided not to continue on to Year 11 as her illness meant she was missing too much school. As people around her grow up and move on, she wakes oblivious to what she’s missed out on.
During sleep episodes, victims rise several times a day to visit the bathroom and eat, but do not properly wake up. Instead, they are trapped in a trance-like state and talk in an infantile manner.
Increased appetite is a common symptom. In the brief periods that they rise during a sleep episode, KLS sufferers often eat ravenously. One KLS sufferer is known to have choked to death gorging during an episode.
Reporter Rahni Sadler visited Bradbery three times at her Tamworth home. She found a happy, bright and eloquent teenager, but was warned that, if she returned during a KLS spell, she’d be met with a “rude, non-talkative, non-smiling” girl.
That’s exactly what happened when Sadler returned three weeks later. In the midst of a KLS episode, she was moody and childlike, with a trance-like stare and no memory of having previously met the reporter.
Sunday Night also met another teenage victim, Alanna Wong. The young woman was just emerging from the grip of the disease, having spent five of the past eight years asleep and missing huge chunks of her life. Home movies showed the havoc the condition had wreaked on Wong and her family members.
Wong is now using her experiences of the syndrome to help others who may be suffering from KLS, founding a Facebook support group called KLS Life. You can find Wong’s group as well as other support groups for KLS sufferers and their families below.
Alanna Wong’s website and KLS support
KLS Facebook groups
KLS Life
KLS Support Group
KLS Parent Support Group
If any KLS sufferers would like to take part in Professor Mignot’s Stanford University study into KLS, they can sign up here.
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