Girl Uncontrollable Laughter: 6-Year-Old’s Uncontrollable Laughter Caused By Brain Tumor


A girl’s uncontrollable laughter is said to have been caused by a brain tumor. According to Fox News, a 6-year-old girl in Bolivia was diagnosed with “misbehavior” when she couldn’t stop laughing and giggling, sometimes at inappropriate times. Called “gelastic seizures,” the young girl couldn’t control her laughter or keep herself from having outbursts — and doctors soon learned what was really going on. The little girl was not acting out — she was suffering from a serious medical condition.

Dr. Jos Liders Burgos Zuleta said:

“She was considered spoiled, crazy even devil-possessed.”

Dr. Solomon Mosh explained:

“It’s not necessarily ‘hahaha’ laughing. There’s no happiness in this. Some of the kids may be very scared.”

The girl with uncontrollable laughter underwent a brain scan. Doctors found a hamartoma — a small, benign tumor. The tumor was pressing against the girl’s temporal lobe, causing her strange, previously unexplainable behavior. The young girl underwent surgery to have the tumor removed, and she stopped have gelastic seizures. She now laughs normally — because she is happy or something is funny — and is not having any abnormal troubles following her surgery.

According to the report:

“The doctors who treated the girl said their report of her case could raise awareness of the strange condition, so doctors in Latin America can diagnose the true cause of some children’s ‘behavioral’ problems, and refer them to a neurologist.”

The girl with uncontrollable laughter will likely live a normal life in the future. While she did suffer from the form of epilepsy, she is now considered cured. It is unclear if she will need to undergo regular scans in the future. According to CBS News, recent advances in surgery allow doctors to remove these types of tumors with some ease. The tumor could have caused other serious problems for the 6-year-old had doctors not found it and removed it. She is very lucky.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, a girl from Haiti was recently flown to Virginia to have a 4-pound tumor removed from her face. Hennglise Dorival, 15, was beginning to suffocate because of the large tumor (which was benign). While her tumor didn’t cause any strange behavior, it did cause her to lose one of her eyes, but doctors who were involved in the 12-hour surgery say that she could gain some of her vision back after another surgery scheduled for a later date.

[Photo courtesy of Burgos Zuleta, et al / ECANCERMEDICALSCIENCE]

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