Sleep hollow

Specialty| Psychiatry/sleep medicine

Sleepy hollow is a possible medical disease in humans causing them to sleep for days or weeks at a time. This disease has only been reported in a remote village of Kalachi in Kazakhstan. It was first reported in March 2013 and to date it has affected 152 people. The disease is probably non-communicable. The disease disappeared for some time but re-emerged in mid-2015. The disease affects all age groups.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Signs and symptoms
* 2 Cause
* 3 Diagnosis
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## Signs and symptoms

Other than excessive sleep, the disease causes vomiting, hallucination, nausea and disorientation. Victims of the disease often feel hallucinations like a "snail walking over their face". In a statement, a professor from Tomsk Polytechnic University, Leonid Rikhvanov, of the department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry said that radon gas from the mine could be the cause of the symptoms.[2]

The affected people fall asleep during day-to-day activities and always feel sleepy. One of the doctors said, "You wake them up, they can speak to you, reply to you, but as soon as you stop talking and ask what bothers them, they just want to sleep, sleep, sleep.".[3]

## Cause

Kazakh officials have given their report about the disease stating that heightened levels of carbon monoxide, along with other hydrocarbons due to flooding of an abandoned Soviet-era uranium mine nearby is causing Sleepy Hollow, by spreading through the village's air.[4] Concentration of carbon monoxide and reduced oxygen in the air was found to be the real reason for sleeping sickness in these villages.

## Diagnosis

The diagnosis is mainly clinical, and one can migrate to other cities and countries, rather than suffering.

## References

1. ↑ "BBC World Service - Health Check, The Mysterious Sleeping Sickness of a Kazakh Village". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02g4n5l. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
2. ↑ "Mysterious Disease Known As 'Sleepy Hollow' Has Effected 150 Kalachi Residents Since 2013 And Disease 'Could Spread'". The Inquisitr News. http://www.inquisitr.com/1897373/mysterious-disease-known-as-sleepy-hollow-has-effected-150-kalachi-residents-since-2013-and-disease-could-spread/. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
3. ↑ "Revisiting Kazakhstan's Village of Kalachi, Where Residents Are Plagued by a Mysterious Sleeping Sickness". The Huffington Post. July 1, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-winkles/revisiting-kazakhstans-vi_b_7707572.html. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
4. ↑ Luhn, Alec (17 July 2015). "Mystery of Kazakhstan sleeping sickness solved, says government". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/17/mystery-kazakhstan-sleeping-sickness-solved.

## External links

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