Strangest Sleep Disorders (1)

In May, Rhett Lamb, 3-year-old from St. Petersburg, Fla., did something that nobody thought he could: the dream.

Cordero, who apparently suffers from a single strain of a rare neurological condition known as Chiari malformation, had never slept for more than an hour or so in one leg since he was born. In many cases, the condition causes severe insomnia cycles separated by periods of chronic fatigue. Unfortunately, only Cordero experienced the first half of the cycle. After addressing the risks of experimental surgery in May, Cordero was finally able to get a good night's rest, according to local news reports.

Not everyone is so lucky. In 2005, sleep disorders caused 684 deaths in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Mortality data tablets. In many cases, how and why they kill people sleep disorder is a medical mystery.

Images: The strangeness of Sleep Disorders

The surreal death of more than 100 healthy adults in the U.S., mainly in Minnesota, is perhaps the most mysterious of all. Since 1977, hundreds of Southeast Asian immigrants in the U.S., mainly ethnic Hmong from Laos, have died from a mysterious disorder known as sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome, or Sunds reported by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The victims were mostly men in their 30 years of age or older, apparently in good health when he died in his sleep for no apparent reason.

"The victim has no history of disease, and there are factors that may precipitate a heart attack," the History of Disease Cambridge notes. At autopsy, no cause of death can be identified in the heart, lungs or brain. Toxicological tests revealed no post poisons. "

Syndrome remains a medical mystery. Shelley Adler, a professor of integrative medicine at the University of San Francisco, California, School of Medicine, speculates that the cataclysmic psychological stress caused by war, migration and the rapid acculturation created harrowing nightmares among Hmong refugees who died. In other words, may have nightmares killed.

The Hmong refugees who survived long enough to migrate to the U.S. has more than enough fodder for nightmares. During the Vietnam War, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used the Hmong to fight a war against communist forces in the mountains of Laos. But like several other rare diseases, no one really knows why the Southeast Asian refugees dying of Sunds.

Fatal familial insomnia

Take fatal familial insomnia, a rare genetic disorder that affects sleep less than 50 families worldwide, according to the Merck Manual of Medical Information.

A healthy person in his mid-50s, has trouble sleeping a normal night. The next night is worse, and the next is even worse. In turn, the days and weeks of sleep regimes shrink to less than one hour a day. The retraction of the person for a small pupil size. Men become impotent. To turn weeks or months, the ability to dream disappears completely. A bit of genes inherited from their ancestors tricks your brain to think the body is always awake. You can close your eyes or lie down to rest, but they never literally "dream" again, according to numerous case studies, including one by Ann Akroush in Case Studies in Virtual Genetics.

Hallucinations and paranoia take hold and begin to deteriorate into a state of dementia, according to the Merck Manual. Shortly after falling into coma, as the fog and, fortunately, to die. The whole process can take as little as seven months or up to three years. There is no known cure.