How sleepwalkers feel no pain

The sleepwalkers were nearly four times more likely than non-sleepwalkers to suffer headaches while awake, and more than ten times as likely to experience migraines.

The sleepwalkers were nearly four times more likely than non-sleepwalkers to suffer headaches while awake, and more than ten times as likely to experience migraines.

Published Nov 6, 2015

Share

London - Some sleepwalkers are so immune to pain that they can fall and break a leg but still not wake up, researchers say.

Yet they are more likely to suffer routine pain while awake, their study found.

One patient sustained severe fractures after jumping out of a third-floor window while sleepwalking but felt no pain until waking up later in the night.

Another broke his leg after climbing on to the roof of his house and falling off while asleep. The man did not wake until the morning.

Psychiatrist Regis Lopez and his colleagues from Hospital Gui-de-Chauliac in Montpelier, France, analysed 100 normal sleepers and 100 men and women with a diagnosis of sleepwalking, of whom 47 had suffered an injury.

Only ten of these reported waking immediately due to pain, with the other 37 perceiving no pain until later in the night or in the morning.

The sleepwalkers were nearly four times more likely than non-sleepwalkers to suffer headaches while awake, and more than ten times as likely to experience migraines.

Writing in the journal Sleep, the doctors said their research highlighted the ‘clinical enigma’ that sleepwalkers experience more pain while awake but a lack of response to pain while sleepwalking.

Sleepwalking tends to occur in the first few hours after falling asleep, during a period of deep sleep.

Between one and five percent of adults and up to 20 percent of children will sleepwalk at some point, experts say.

Daily Mail

Related Topics: