Laughing spontaneously - asd with sld and epilepsy

[jess1975]

My ds is almost four and frequently laughs spontaneously. This can happen at any point during the day or night and we haven't a clue what he's laughing at. A friend has recently told me that sometimes this can point to epilepsy. I have been concerned for some time about absent seizures (he is absent for a good chunk of the day) however we did ask his paediatrician about these and she seemed to think it was just the nature of his condition rather than a seizure. I've never mentioned the laughing as I had no idea this was relevant to epilepsy. He's not due to be seen again for a year and I'm just a little worried now.

There is a type of seizure called a Gelastic seizure which involves sudden outbursts of laughter. My sister had this when she was younger; less so now she's an adult, but she still has minor absence seizures. She was diagnosed at 6 with what used to be called petit mal; this condition is more commonly known as absence seizures these days. Not really a surprise as my father is a full-blown grand mal epileptic....but anyway.

Might be worth a trip to the GP, I think. Good luck and let us know how you get on.