Lauren has been having night terrors (screaming, crying, but totally asleep) since the age of 2 years.  Pediatrician after pediatrician told us, “this is normal, she’ll outgrow it - DEAL!”  Well at the age of 5 years, we’d had enough.  Lauren is on clonazepam (generic name) in order for her to sleep better.  Klonapin (brand name) is actually a drug to stop seizures, but it has aided in Lauren’s night terror disorder and keeps her from having them.  She’s taking .25 mg every night before bed.  On December 1, 1999, I stopped giving her the clonazepam in order to induce her night terrors again.  On December 18 1999 she had her first sleep study  and boy did it yield some interesting things!  We’re still waiting for the final report and hopefully will get some insight from the neurologist.  We’ll keep you updated in the next newsletter.

1. Lauren did show some sleep apnea the first few hours of sleep.
She would stop breathing, then arouse herself on her own.  This only happened BEFORE her night terrors started.

2. She did not get any REM until after her night terrors.  Tech said you should get into your first REM sleep approximately 90 minutes after falling asleep.  She went to bed at 9:30 P.M. She had 2 small episodes around 11:30 P.M. then a long episode lasting from 12:05 A.M. to 12:39 A.M.  She did have stages REM sleep from 1 A.M. until we were awoken at 6:30 A.M.

3. Her 02 stats are below what they should be.  Normal, awake 02 was 103.  During the entire night she was 93-94, but dipped down to 89-92.  Tech said that you should only see a 4% decrease from your awake and sleeping 02 stats and these rates are greater than 4%.

4. During her night terrors, she was asleep.  During each episode I would slip out into the office where the tech was watching the monitor and she said Lauren was sleeping -
yet you hear this crying/screaming child from the room and just can’t figure it out!?

     The tech said that it’s going to take more than one person to ‘score’ Lauren’s sleep study - that there are too many variables that are not normal. I’ll keep you posted. . .

-Sharon Deveney, Fredericksburg, VA; 540-752-7834; sbdeveney@hotmail.com