Fatal Familial Insomnia

[Acnologia]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6822468/ns/dateline_nbc/t/family-battles-fatal-insomnia/

An old story, but I was surfing through Youtube today and found a documentary by Discovery Channel about this disease. It runs in families and those who develop it cannot sleep at all. Eventually, the insomnia and exhaustion kills them.

What do you think? Apparently, even sleep medications and induced comas do not work, as stated in the Wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia

[marvel_phoenix]

I feel bad for them. :'( Our brains weren't meant to go more than a certain number of hours without sleep without starting to take micronaps. Extreme periods of non- sleep have been known to cause a degree of psychosis. If those people can't sleep, I can't begin to imagine what it feels like to go through that.

This thread made me remember this segment I saw on good morning america or whatever. They were talking about this kid who had to have someone with him 24/7 because if he fell asleep, his breathing would stop. Some sort of muscle paralysis or whatever.

[Dr. Evil]

That is just horrible. I couldn't imagine having such a disease...those poor people :(

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

> Fatal
> Dominant gene disorder, children have 50% chance of getting it
> Shows up in genetic testing
> Have children anyway