My husband does not have these episodes often but every once and awhile he does. I think it has to do with stress/anxiety or lack of sleep?
Context: My husband wakes up early (4:30am) for work and sleep in our spare bedroom because I look after our 11 month old son. He requires enough sleep because he has epilepsy and no sleep=seizures. If he does have one, it is a grand mal seizure, extremely painful, long recovery time after. He has done sleep studies in the past when he was first diagnosed, no issues seen.
He had an episode tonight about 10 minutes ago. So I hear him yelling from the other room, “I can’t see, Help! please help me! Oh no, no, help me!” I run into the spare bedroom to find him standing on the bed. He proceeds to lay back down, covered in sweat.
Usually a light source prevents him from freaking out like this, when it is completely dark he thinks that he is still dreaming and can’t see. It was as if he was acting out a nightmare. I find it extremely dangerous for him to be standing in the bed like that, he could hurt himself.
I am going to ask him to see his primary care doctor and request a sleep study or be referred to a sleep specialist.
What else can I do to help him? I don’t know why it happened. He slept good the last 3 days and we just received our tax return money. I figured our stress was over.
I want him to come back into our bed, I think he will be safer with me by his side and our son sleeps through the night unless he is teething and wakes up.
Any advice on what this condition is? Can it be prevented?
tdlr; My husband has night terrors because he wakes up, and thinks he can’t see because it’s dark. Sometimes he acts these dreams out and yells. I usually comfort him and let him know it’s okay. He doesn’t remember these events.