child has begun having episodes of temporary paralysis, loss of speaking, blurry vision......

[ReesMom02]

I have an 8 year old with Asperger's.  He's had what we thought were absent seizures in the past. Followed by months of nothing. In June he began having tetany/paralysis episodes that mostly affect his legs and mostly in the evening. Other times he's walking or sitting he is stuck and can't get up or walk. Sometimes he reports dizziness, or blurry vision/ nausea/odd feeling in his stomach, and trouble swallowing. Then his legs start shaking for a few minutes. He does not lose consciousness during these. Some of them include not being able to speak.  He says he feels cold as well. Two or three occasions he has "blanked out" and did not respond to us, for 30+ seconds. Then suddenly his head jerks and he is looking around asking what happened or where he is.

I can give more details but this post only allows 2000 characters.
Basically his legs muscles go completely rigid and stiff for 5 min to an hour almost every night. Usually after 7pm.
He has myotonia, but these other symptoms were ruled out by his myotonia doctor. he says they are not related.  We had two EEG's the first had to abnormal blips on it, the second was normal.
Any help at all is appreciated.

[ReesMom02]

Thank you. I did not realize this forum was staffed by PhD's. Since I cannot remove the post I will post what we have learned for future parents should they search the forum for something similar.  

It was suspected by his doctors that his episodes were seizure related, but after hospitalization and EEG/Video monitoring, no seizures were found. It is believed to be that the has a a periodic paralysis disorder. Which is unrelated to his Autism Spectrum Disorder. I did find articles on PubMed that verify his symptoms are related to his myotonic muscle disorder. Anyone out there whose child might appear to have symptoms like this that has seen many doctors like we have and has a clean EEG, consider visiting www.ppa.org for information about paralytic disorders.
Best Wishes!

[Jessica L Thomason Sassi, Ph.D., BCBA-D]

All of the experts in this forum are doctors of psychology, not physicians, so we don't have the expertise to address this question.  I would recommend that you aggressively pursue evaluation (by neurologists, or other specialists that you and your physician feel are relevant), which it sounds like you have already begun.

Best of luck to you.