Many illnesses have been associated with ASD. These include:
* Epilepsy
Seizures can take on many different forms, and seizures affect different people in different ways. Anything that the brain does normally can also occur during a seizure when the brain is activated by seizure discharges. Some people call this activity “electrical storms” in the brain.
Seizures have a beginning, middle, and end. Not all parts of a seizure may be visible or easy to separate from each other. Every person with seizures will not have every stage or symptom described below. The symptoms during a seizure usually are stereotypic (occur the same way or similar each time), episodic (come and go) and may be unpredictable.
It has been suggested that some children also ‘become’ autistic or begin to display ‘autistic features’ after a series of seizures. As repeated seizures can cause a loss of memory one must again ask whether, at an early age, periods of normal development interspersed with several periods of sudden memory loss in which one loses previous skills and achievements could also be a factor in the development of autism.
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* Landau Kleffner syndrome (LKS)
This
rare form of childhood epilepsy generally develops between the ages
of 3 and 8. It may develop slowly over a period of months or suddenly appear
overnight. It results in severe language disorder which, when
occurring in
very young children who have not yet learnt to talk, may be mistaken
for a developmental
disorder, autism or deafness.
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* Scoliosis - is a permanent curvature of the spine so that it is curved in a C-shape or S-shape.
More information is to be found at http://iscoliosis.com/
* Gut issues - these come in various forms so have a page to themselves.
Many people with ASD have also noted other physical effects but because some of them are extremely painful they are included here.
Gunilla Gerland tells us that she experienced a strange and highly unpleasant feeling - like cold steel - in her spine when growing up - like an almost constant shudder. While sometimes it was relatively quiet but periodically it grew much worse and, although she became slightly used to it it was a constant torture.
Carly Fleischmann who uses a computer (with text to speech) as her voice, told her parents about the strange physical sensations she experiences. She told them that her legs feel as if they are on fire and a million ants are crawling up her arms. Hardly something her parents would have known. . .
Do you have other examples?
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