At this stage, most patients are taken to the hospital, where around 40% are misdiagnosed as having a psychiatric disorder like schizophrenia. The psychotic phase is accompanied by delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, depression, paranoia, agitation, and insomnia. In the prodromal phase, many but not all patients experience a flu-like illness for up to 3 weeks. There are four main phases of the disorder.
What caused these frightening symptoms? The answer was a disease that had only been discovered a few years earlier (right here at Penn!): NMDAR encephalitis. Sound like a nightmare? Well, it actually happened to Susannah Calahan, who details her terrifying story first-hand in her 2012 book Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. And perhaps even scarier? You don’t remember any of it. You swing from violence into a state of immobility and stupor. You’re admitted to a hospital where you’re (incorrectly) diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Then come the hallucinations and seizures.
Everything seems to be going your way until you start becoming paranoid and acting erratically. Imagine you’re a bright twenty-something with a new job and a new relationship. Electronic address: 9 Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, United States of America.January-22-2020 | Carolyn Keating, PennNeuroKnow Electronic address: 8 Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, United States of America. Electronic address: 7 Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, United States of America.
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