Prader-Willi syndrome

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I never heard of Prader-Willi syndrome till my therapist mentioned it. I have a cousin who is 9 years old. She is obese. She has a habit of picking on her skin. We went to this steakhouse restaurant and she was playing with the sugar packets. She opened one up and started eating the sugar from the packet. Her dad tried to get her to stop. She constantly is hungry too and wants to have the biggest portion. She does have ADD and autism too. Her speech is fine. She does walk funny and breathes very heavily. Are these signs of Prader-Willi syndrome? Do any of you have children with this?

My late sister (died of SIDS at 10 months) had Prader-Willi.

I would be shocked if a child could make it to 9 years of age without a diagnosis- it's a very severe condition that has a lot of physical features, and almost always mild to severe mental retardation.

That said, there is a connection between genetic PW (impacting the #15 chromosome(s)) and autism, but the research is still a work in progress.

When PW kids "are always hungry," it means "they will beg, borrow, and steal to eat. The kitchen usually needs to be kept under lock and key, and PW kids will eat non-food items like pillows or paper." There are also common facial characteristics in PW people- again, I'd be very surprised if your cousin has it.

That said, PW and autism have some similarities, and there's no reason someone can't have both autism and PW.

Is she on any medication for the Autism because that could be having a negative affect on her? If it's not medication it's possible she could have that.

I believe she is on some medication for either the autism or ADD. She lives in Seoul, so I'm not sure about the medical treatments for PW, ADD or autism abroad.

If she's on the wrong anti depressant, mood stabilizer, or an anti psychotic then that could be inducing some of her symptoms. Autism doesn't have it's own specific drugs so usually doctors will try any combination psychiatric drugs to try and alleviate certain autistic behaviors. I wouldn't be surprised if they put her on something like Risperdal, if that was the case then that could've possibly caused the obesity.

you can have a genetic test done for it.