Night Terrors

Whoa! That's pretty much what I was thinking around 4:00 this morning when I was awakened by Matthew screaming. In the past, Matthew has had, for lack of knowing otherwise, what we call night terrors. I don't really know that it is a night terror in terms of what other children have, but that's the best description we can give. Here is a definition of night terrors according to about.com :

Children who have night terrors are usually described as 'bolting upright' with their eyes wide open, with a look of fear and panic, and letting out a 'blood curdling scream'. These kids will usually also be sweating, breathing fast and have a rapid heart rate (autonomic signs). And although it will seem like they are awake, during a night terror, children will appear confused, will not be consolable and won't recognize you.

Typical night terrors last about 5 to 30 minutes and afterwards, children usually return to a regular sleep. If you are able to wake your child up during a night terror, he is likely to become scared and agitated, mostly because of your own reaction to the night terror, especially if you were shaking or yelling at him to wake up. Instead of trying to wake up a child having a night terror, it is usually better to just make sure he is safe, comfort him if you can, and help him return to sleep once it is over.

That absolutely describes Matthew to a tee when he is having one of these episodes! (Except he doesn't always go back to sleep.) Very few people have witnessed him doing this, but I must say, it is one of the scariest things. He has the most terrified look on his face, screams a scream like no other, and one of the hardest things is that he hits himself so hard. When we try to stop the hitting, he begins pinching and scratching us with all he has, as well as tries to bite. I'll not lie...it hurts so bad! BUT, you can tell that Matthew does not know what he is doing. He's not even at himself enough to know. Not even joking, it is like he is possessed. Finally, after close to 45 minutes, he calmed down and came to himself. I don't know why, but it seems to help to play some of the Gaither's gospel homecoming shows...it just helps to calm him. One of the first few times he did this, we worked with him for so long and didn't know what else to do. I thought that perhaps someone new coming in, might pull him out of his spell, so Jason called his mom and his brother Jonathan. They came over, but it didn't seem to help. We found about the best thing to do at that time was to get him out and ride him in the car. I would wrap him up and hold him while Jason drove us around and Jacob snoozed in his car seat...I know I shouldn't have rode him around without him being in his seat, but at that point I would have done anything to help my little boy.

It has been 2-3 years since he has had one of these terrors. I mentioned it to our doctor and she recommended I take him off of caffeine and chocolate. I could not believe it, but it helped!! I think it was too stimulating and was a big factor in the spells. It was also common for him to have an ear infection at the time, which...yep, he's being treated as we speak for an ear infection! Matthew has become more aggressive with me here lately and I noticed the difference the same day I took him to the doctor. Today has been particularly rough on us all. In Sunday school this morning, he pretty much tore my arms up. I posted on facebook that it looked like a mad cat had gotten ahold of me! I think it is mostly Matthew's way of trying to communicate to me that something is wrong, but boy, it's sure not pleasant! I was changing him this afternoon, and for whatever the reason he just reached out and slapped me right in the face! Wow...talk about taking you by surprise...and making you gun shy...every time he moved after that, I was dodging :o)

Tomorrow we are going back to Vanderbilt for Matthew's check up with his neurologist. They are not doing any type of procedures, it will just be an office consultation. I have a list of questions for him that I made during the time we were waiting on the results from his MRI. I don't really expect any info for the night terror spells, but I do hope to find out more about the results of his MRI and EEG by talking to the doctor face-to-face. Matthew also goes to his pediatrician on Friday for his physical, so I'm hoping his ears will be all better by then and his behavior settles back to normal.

Probably the hardest thing with the night terror spells is feeling so helpless. Nothing you do seems to help, and I sure got a dose of the reality that Matthew is much bigger and stronger than he was a couple of years ago. It scared me this morning to think of how it could be when Matthew gets even older. Night terrors are something that most children outgrow, so I'm hoping this is the case with Matthew. I am hoping that this time was a one time deal.