Meet the woman who sleeps 59 DAYS straight due to rare ‘Sleeping Beauty’ disorder

A young woman suffers with an incredibly rare disorder that causes her to sleep continuously for days and sometimes months on end.
Last year Imaarl Duprey, 23, slept almost continuously for 59 days and behaved as if she was a small child during the episode.
The graduate suffers from Kleine Levin Syndrome (KLS) - dubbed Sleeping Beauty Syndrome – which affects just 1,000 people in the world and can cause her to become incredibly drowsy without warning.


Imaarl, a fashion worker from Lewisham, London, is left in a dream-like trance or acts erratically during the few hours when her family wake her to ensure she eats, drinks and uses the bathroom.


She relies on round the clock care and assistance from her mum Kerry
Griffiths, 46 and sister Shahnequa Duprey, 21.
‘It’s had a really big impact on me and my family,’ Imaarl said. ’In the early days of having KLS my mum thought I could be having a breakdown – I thought the same. I need constant supervision. My sister has been forced to miss university lectures and my mum has taken a lot of time off work.


 ‘The condition has become a punishment for them, as well as me. I don’t know how I’d cope without them.
Mother Kerry, a teaching assistant, said: ‘If it was just sleeping it would be so much easier.
‘When I wake her so she can use the bathroom or eat something, she’s a different person completely.
‘Imaarl’s gone. She’s somewhere else. She’s replaced by a toddler. It’s been a stressful time.’
Imaarls first developed the condition in 2008. She was 18-years-old when she slept for 10-days after a family party.


The episode was dismissed as a one off and Imaarl headed off on her first holiday with friends to Ayia Napa later that year.
But the drowsy symptoms of KLS returned and she only knew she’d been away after waking up with a sun tan.


Imaarl recalled: ‘While I was at the airport waiting for my flight I was feeling fuzzy, but I thought it was the excitement and early start, and nothing sinister.
‘When we reached Ayia Napa I had this drunken feeling, even though I hadn’t been drinking. I knew something wasn’t right, but I thought I could deal it or it would pass.


‘One night I was in a club and I remember lying on the floor. Everyone was walking past me. Luckily, a group of teachers from my hotel found me and took me back to my friends. It’s terrifying to think what could have happened.
For most of the week long holiday, Imaarl fought off the sleep symptoms of KLS, but when she was back home she slept for ten days


 ‘The condition can be potentially devastating, as it can ruin young people’s social, educational and social lives.
‘The cause is unknown; there may be a genetic or autoimmune component to it, but this is at present very speculative.
‘It remains unclear whether KLS is one disease or other are a number of slightly different conditions that have common features.
‘As the disease is very rare, even experts will have seen relatively small numbers of patients.

Read more: Daily Mail

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