Symptoms of HH start very early in life and can be mild to severe. Some people never experience symptoms, or they are so mild that they go unnoticed. Others may have severe symptoms such as daily or even round-the-clock seizures and other issues. The most common symptoms are gelastic seizures and dacrystic seizures.
Called "laughing seizures," gelastic seizures appear to be episodes of spontaneous or uncontrolled laughing, giggling or smirking.
Dacrystic seizures, on the other hand, appear as bouts of crying.
- Other symptoms that may appear can include:
- Cognitive impairments
- Hypothalamic rages
- Behavioral and emotional difficulties
- Endocrine or hormonal disturbances
- Precocious puberty
- Pallister-Hall syndrome
In very young children and babies, these symptoms can sometimes be incorrectly diagnosed as colic, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or tantrums.