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I'm Just Tired
Excessive Daytime Sleepiness and Your Child
By Carma Haley
There are several levels to EDS: mild, moderate and severe or profound. With each level of EDS comes a variable number of signs and symptoms. As a child's disorder of EDS worsens, it becomes easier to identify, as the traits related to a sleepy child are more dominant and observable, Dr. Sheldon says.
While watching various home videos taken by parents, viewers are bound to see a video of a child falling asleep into a plate of spaghetti, their birthday cake or perhaps while riding on a pony at their local fair. While these images are thought of as cute and funny, Dr.Sheldon says these are perfect examples of a child with severe or profound EDS.
"Profoundly sleepy children are the ones that are easy to identify," says Dr. Sheldon. "The child who consistently falls asleep in places or situations such as their pediatrician's waiting room, under the Christmas tree, at their birthday party, at the dinner table, on the playground, at parties or while talking on the phone to Grandma are all profoundly sleepy children. These are all situations in which you wouldn't expect the child to be falling asleep and a child who consistently falls asleep under these circumstances is a profoundly sleepy child."
The mildly affected sleepy child may not even exhibit any noticeable signs of EDS. These children are very difficult to identify and diagnosis of a case of mild EDS is rare, Dr. Sheldon says. However, as the disorder progresses to the moderate level the signs and symptoms become more noticeable, but are often misdiagnosed.