Uncontrollable laughter was a symptom of a man’s rare, bizarre epilepsy, doctors say
A 40-year-old man’s uncontrollable, inappropriate laughter was more than a nuisance — it was a symptom of a rare form of epilepsy, according to doctors in Hawaii.
The man had suffered since he was 8 years old from what University of Hawaii at Manoa doctors called an “affliction that caused him to laugh with no control over when it happened or why,” researchers said in a news release on Tuesday.
The man was struggling with a condition called gelastic seizures, with laughing fits that struck two to three times each week, according to researchers.
“This was a very medically intriguing case. Prior to this case, I didn’t know seizures could manifest in such a way as uncontrollable laughter,” Nina Leialoha Beckwith, a family medicine resident who worked on the case, said in a statement released by the school.
Doctors wrote in a Hawaii Journal of Medicine and Social Welfare report that the seizures are “a rare form of epilepsy ... highly associated with abnormal cognitive development and behavioral problems in patients.”
And the man did have “longstanding behavioral issues,” the researchers said, as well as a history of schizophrenia, diabetes and a brain tumor.
“I believe his story can help us as clinicians to identify and provide better care for patients suffering from similar conditions,” Beckwith said in a statement. “I can only imagine what it is like for this patient to suffer from these bizarre seizures for so many years. I’m grateful to have been a part of his care.”
Past research has revealed the seizures can come from “non-cancerous tumors on the hypothalamus region of the brain,” as well as occurring “in patients with frontal and temporal lobe lesions.”
The diagnosis came with good news for the patient: a cure for his laughter.
Researchers said “there was indeed a physical cause” for the seizures “and when the hypothalamic hamartoma [a tumor-like formation] was detected and the patient treated with medicine, the laughter was brought under control.”
The case report was published last year.
This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 9:54 PM with the headline "Uncontrollable laughter was a symptom of a man’s rare, bizarre epilepsy, doctors say."
