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What Causes Delay In Waking Up?

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Posted on Tue, 4 Mar 2014
Question: For about 3 months, me or my wife would go to wake up my son, 13, and he would be unable to wake up. This has gone from once every couple of weeks to 6 times a week. it is like he is in a comma. his breathing does not change when we shake him - nothing about him changes - he has no awareness that we are there and after a couple of hours when we can wake him he is fine and has memory of us trying to wake him. a couple of times we have gotten him out of bed and literally drug him around the room and eventually laid him on the floor. His head just flopping from one side to the other. We normally try to wake him about 6:30 am and again at 7am and every 30 mins after that. It is usually about 9 or 9:30 before he will wake up. It has been as late as noon. He goes to bed around 9:30 but sometimes is unable to fall asleep until 11pm or midnight. Sometimes he is about to fall asleep quickly. This can happen on nights he gets lots of sleep and will not happen on nights he gets 6 hours of sleep. He wakes with a headache every day. I an unable to find a pattern. I have search the internet for something like this and cannot find anything. We have done a home EEG and are waiting for some results - he had a concussion about 14 months ago and is still suffering with headaches - he has been diagnoses with cluster headaches. He had had not history of every have a seizure.
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Answered by Dr. Sudhir Kumar (11 hours later)
Brief Answer: My reply is below. Detailed Answer: Hi, Thank you for posting your query. First of all, I would like to reassure you that your son does not have any serious neurological problem, as his MRI brain is normal (which excludes conditions such as brain tumor, infections, blood clots, etc). The two main possibilities are seizures and non-epileptic seizures. Both these conditions can be diagnosed and differentiated by an EEG (done during the period he is not waking up). In seizures, we would see epileptiform discharges, whereas in non-epileptic seizures, the EEG would be normal. Both these conditions can be well treated with medications. I hope my answer helps. Please get back if you have any follow up queries or if you require any additional information. Wishing you good health, Dr Sudhir Kumar MD (Internal Medicine), DM (Neurology) XXXXXXX Consultant Neurologist Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, India Click on this link to ask me a DIRECT QUERY: http://bit.ly/Dr-Sudhir-kumar My BLOG: http://bestneurodoctor.blogspot.in
Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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Dr. Sudhir Kumar

Neurologist

Practicing since :1994

Answered : 6232 Questions

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What Causes Delay In Waking Up?

Brief Answer: My reply is below. Detailed Answer: Hi, Thank you for posting your query. First of all, I would like to reassure you that your son does not have any serious neurological problem, as his MRI brain is normal (which excludes conditions such as brain tumor, infections, blood clots, etc). The two main possibilities are seizures and non-epileptic seizures. Both these conditions can be diagnosed and differentiated by an EEG (done during the period he is not waking up). In seizures, we would see epileptiform discharges, whereas in non-epileptic seizures, the EEG would be normal. Both these conditions can be well treated with medications. I hope my answer helps. Please get back if you have any follow up queries or if you require any additional information. Wishing you good health, Dr Sudhir Kumar MD (Internal Medicine), DM (Neurology) XXXXXXX Consultant Neurologist Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, India Click on this link to ask me a DIRECT QUERY: http://bit.ly/Dr-Sudhir-kumar My BLOG: http://bestneurodoctor.blogspot.in