Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

The op/ed by Dr. Michael Segal, “What We Don’t Know About Tylenol and Autism,” (WSJ September 27-28) raises the possibility that a genetic predisposition unrelated to the use of Tylenol may be the cause.  He opines that women with a genetic makeup causing a greater sensitivity to pain may use Tylenol more frequently, but Tylenol is not the cause of their children’s autism. It is their underlying predisposition to pain.

Dr. Segal and his colleagues discovered a biomarker linking this pain sensitivity with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome. The biomarker is insensitivity to local anesthetics like lidocaine or novocaine.

They propose studying women with lidocaine ineffectiveness to learn if there is an increased incidence of autism in their children independent of the use of Tylenol.

Such a study already exists in nature. My patients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome are often insensitive to local anesthetics. It is estimated that there are ten million women in America who carry the diagnosis of Ehlers- Danlos Syndrome. Studies reveal that twenty percent of their children will have autism.

Ehlers-Danlos is misunderstood but may hold the key to understanding a little more about autism. I suspect there will be no one answer.  Nothing in medicine is that simple.