Night Terrors...the most challenging condition by far...

Nicole - posted on 05/30/2009 ( 3 moms have responded )

Hello my name is Nicole and I am a Mother of a beautiful 2 and a half year and yes one who has episodes of Night terrors. I don't even know where to begin with this issue but I guess I can start with one word....INSANE! The 5-30 minute intervels feel like an eternity of craziness with the ending of complete emotional exhustion...at least this is how I felt when I had no idea of what was happening with my daughter. I was ready to call in a preist to bless my home, if she was an adult I would of called the police for a crazy call.. At first I thought it was a 2 year old tantrum so would whipp out my "Mommy disipline" act, but that didn't work at all, that only escalated the situation and to a destructive state. She would thrash around, point to the air yelling " Go Go...Goooo" then she would throw everything she could reach and break things, she would be all over the house and follow me around screaming, hitting, breaking. All of this in a sweat and to me at the time, she seemed awake, eyes wide open.
After a week of these episodes every night I was completley beside myself. A feeling I can not explain. My only outreach was to go to the doctor and hope they would listen and understand what was going on and hopefully not think I was a bad Mom (which by far is wrong as I dedicate my whole life to my daughter). I actually had video taped a few episodes so someone would believe me. As I started to explain to the doctor, half way through, he says "She has Night Terrors" so I my reaction was..." whew, oh good, there is something we can give her to help, so what is it so I can start right away" and he says "well there is nothing." my mouth dropped and I said "Huh" he went on to explain that NT's can stem from chronic pain, overtiredness, trauma or mental immaturity and hopefully she will out grow it. He continued to say that they can be life threatening if you don't react and treat them in the proper way as the child can go into Cardaic Arrest. This occurs during the stage 4 sleep cycle where the human heart is already beating at a higher rate and if you try to wake the child you can cause the child to have a heart attack. My daughter was in a deep mental sleep but her body did not transition into stage 5 sleep, this is where our bodies are in paralyzed sleep. During this time my daughter was seeing the object that was causing the terror in her sleep.
My daughter has had medical issue since birth pretty much and we are still in the process of finding out and healing her medical issues. What we came to find out is that my daugher had been suffering from sleep apnea, chronic fluid build internally in ears and not mention the ongoing issue Chronic Constipation. Our doctor referred us to an ENT where I decided with medical advise, to have her tonsils, adneoids removed, tubes placed in ears. After her heal time, she had not suffered another NT. She is now undergoing Biofeedback at Lucile Packards hospital @ Stanford for her ongoing GI issues, which is leading toward Neurology and a birth defect of her spinal cord which also causes chronic pain..
BTW, my daughter would wake up after the Night Terror not knowing a thing. She would ask why things were broken and thrown around and I would be beside myself, thinking What are you serious. After reading and educating myself on this REAL condition, I can now tell the differnce in her during a NT and not.
There is a really great book out there you should read if you are expirencing this in your family, it is called "Banishing Night Terrors" very interesting and helpful as this can continue into adulthood.
My heart goes out to all you Mom's expirencing the NT rollercoaster...Stay Stronger, for your precious child.

~Nicole