*gulp* this is what I am worried about :p

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http://scienceoveracuppa.com/2013/07/07 ... sm-part-i/

While I have a lot of facial features that are in common with these disorders, I can't possibly have them all, and a lot of them have early death.

Hello, I think that you are setting yourself up for a lot of stress looking for co-morbids like this.

1. When considering these conditions I feel that you will find that they are much rarer than Autism.

2. It is also very unlikely that there will then be an overlap of multiples of these syndromes and Autism too.

3. Then you have to find out if these conditions are allied with Aspergers specifically. I'm assuming you have Aspergers rather than another form of Autism.

If you reach this point and you still have concerns about an additional syndrome then you should investigate further.

It's interesting that a few WPers have likened spectrumites as being like X-Men or mutants. Some of these conditions (SLOS, CHARGE, etc) have mutations in their genes. It also makes me wonder: you'll often hear about folks on the spectrum who look younger than their age. I get that pointed out to me all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if that's also some kind of mutation.

Take a deep breath and realize you are probably being a hypochondriac in this matter. With all of the conditions listed in the posted blog are genetic conditions that are easily tested for. You are not going to be a candidate for testing for them if you have only 1 or 2 physical features associated with them. These conditions have clusters of symptoms that are associated with them. A person can share a few of the physical features and not have the disease because there are other genes that control the physical features. Breathe deep, you are fine.

Just to clarify, the genetic conditions listed in the blog post are definitely very rare, i.e., 1:10,000 or fewer. But it wouldn't be unusual for certain physical features, especially facial, to occur more frequently with "idiopathic" autism. A cause or causes are unlikely to solely affect the brain and nothing else since the central nervous system doesn't develop in a vacuum. Iirc, autistics may have certain features of the ear that may be more common, and who knows, there may be other traits as well.

If your general health has been relatively okay, then the likelihood of fulfilling some official syndrome is small, since syndromes tend to be identified based on severity. As it was said, many of these syndromes can be downright deadly.

In regards to cardiomegaly, and subsequent high blood pressure, some MD's believe that diuretics used to treat hypertension are also beneficial in treating autism. Here are links to two reports on the drugs bumetanide and propranolol.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2 ... -hope.html

http://www.medindia.net/news/People-Wit ... 1384-1.htm

Considering that this promotes to genetic research, it's probably bogus "syndromes" to promote a cure for money and end of autism.

I don't think this is a cause for worry. As many others have pointed out these syndromes are very rare; more to the point, the physical abnormalities and mental disabilities associated with these diseases tend to be incredibly severe. The article you linked doesn't do a great job of pointing this out, but when they mention abnormal features they don't mean "well, my head is kind of big and my ears look weird", they're referring to severe & obvious deformities (take a look at some of the pictures on the page). When they mention intellectual disabilities they're mainly talking about mental retardation. Also these syndromes cause a variety of systemic health issues which would have been noticed in early childhood if you had them. Diagnosing yourself with one of these syndromes is kind of like convincing yourself you've got terminal lung cancer because you have a cough.

That said, there are distinctive facial features that are associated with non-syndromic autism (at least in Caucasian males). Here's a link to the paper. This is a graphical summary of their findings:

The lines represent distances between facial features. Interestingly the facial features corresponded to clinical presentations:

For anyone still interested, this is the next part in the syndromic autism series: http://scienceoveracuppa.com/2013/07/14 ... m-part-ii/

Includes:

Isodicentric Chromosome 15 Duplication Syndrome
Angelman Syndrome
Prader-Willi Syndrome
Tuberous Sclerosis
Fragile X Syndrome