Hey there guys.
I believe I’m in the middle of a relapse right now, as symptoms worse and new symptoms presenting (Like sudden breathlessness when sitting in a chair watching telly) I’m also in the middle of swapping over my anti depressant medications so have had a short period with no pills to prop me up, and am finding my emotions very ‘raw’ right now.
As well as the usual mood going down, it’s also now started going up.
Today I’ve I have a ‘need’ to laugh. It’s not a ‘want’ to laugh, hard to explain but I guess it’s kind of like thirst. A want to drink is a choice you make, take it or leave it. A need to drink is a clear thirst symptom. It’s odd and probably incomprehensible but this is the best way I can describe it.
Whilst to me it feels like uncontrollable laughter it wouldn’t meet the official description as all of the information I can find about it says that uncontrollable laughter doesn’t need any trigger at all.
I need a trigger for mine, and when it’s triggered I can’t stop laughing. After the initial laugh triggered by whatever, the emotional aspect of the laugh goes away and leaves me feeling well fairly emotionless, flat. I just sit there laughing my head off and unable to stop. A laugh that runs away from you.
It’s a pain in the bum. Like hiccoughs the first few are amusing, then you just want to tell your body to stop it
The reason I’m considering a possibility that this is a symptom rather than me just being in a happy mood, is because I’ve had this ‘need’ before. About 15-20 years ago living at home with parents, triggerd by something said at the dinner table I would trigger a laugh which runs away from me. Again once I’d started I couldn’t stop. I clearly remember episodes where I had to leave the table because even though I didn’t have the happy emotion anymore, I couldn’t stop laughing. These incidents weres spaced out in time, happened once in a blue moon over a period of couple of short years, before it they disappeared. I’d almost forgotten totally about this memory but this kind of thing sticks in your mind.
It is a reasonable possibility that I was showing initial indications of ms long before this point to do with circulation:
My mum tells me that when I was a very young child, she used to get extremely worried about me as I frequently used to “turn blue” and on more than one occassion she had to stick me in the bath often to get warm again. (Nothing that ever happened to any of my other three siblings)
I’ve never had great circulation and regularly lose feeling in extremities purely due to temperature not ms. It might now surprise you, but since developing MS I have also been diagnosed with raynauds.
Wikipedia states that in secondary raynauds: “It is important to realize that Raynaud’s can herald these diseases by periods of more than twenty years in some cases, making it effectively their first presenting symptom”
There could be link between my historic circulation issues and my ms or not.
There could be a link between my historic laughter episodes and my ms, or more likely not.
But you never know, the person sitting right next to you might be having the same thing.
I was just wondering if anyone else has this ‘need’ to laugh a laugh that then gets away from you? Just curious more than anything.
Thankyou if you read this <3