Boy Sleeps 11 Days, but Doctors Can’t Understand Why

By Jack Phillips
October 19, 2017 Last Updated: October 19, 2017
(Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

A Kentucky boy slept for 11 days straight at the Norton Children’s hospital—without waking up.

Doctors aren’t sure why, however, WHAS-11 reported.

Wyatt Shaw found himself at the hospital, unable to stay awake.

“I tried to wake him up and he kept falling back asleep. I kept “Wyatt” “Wyatt” “Wyatt” and then he fell back asleep again,” his mother, Amy Thompson, was quoted as saying.

The hospital monitored his brain activity, finding that the boy, who is in the second grade, slept for 11 days.

Thompson added, “When he would open his eyes it didn’t look like he was there and it was terrifying.”

After doctors did tests on his blood, they couldn’t figure it out. “Every test they did came back clear,” his mother told WDRB-TV.

But after about 10 days, they gave him new seizure medication and he woke up the next day.

“He was just having electric misfires in his brain and it was just causing him to stay in a constant sleep,” Thompson said.

After he woke the first time, he couldn’t move or speak. “We just kept praying,” Thompson said.

“They said, ‘We’ll probably never know, but we’re just going to treat him now with rehab to get him better,'” she told local outlets.

Kleine-Levin Syndrome is one disorder that causes sufferers to sleep for 12 to 24 hours per day where they only wake to use the bathroom or eat. It’s not clear what causes the disorder, known as KLS, or “Sleeping Beauty syndrome.”

Individual episodes can last more than a week, but at times lasting for months, according to the KLS Foundation website.

“They function daily with the frightful reality that they could become sick again at any moment. KLS episodes may continue to reoccur for a decade or longer with devastating effects on the adolescent’s life and family. KLS robs children and young adults of big pieces of their lives, one agonizing episode at a time,” the website states.

Wyatt wasn’t diagnosed with KLS, but he showed similar symptoms as those suffering from it, according to MailOnline.

Doctors are not sure if he will relapse.