https://freeshowing.secretingredientsmovie.com/? Go here to see Trailer and sign up
The extraordinary FREE worldwide showing of Secret Ingredients — a powerful film by Jeffrey Smith and Amy Hart — shares remarkable stories of people who regain their health after discovering the “secret ingredients” in their food and making a bold commitment to avoid them.
A Dublin student who was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after doctors thought she was having a mental breakdown has told how tests revealed she actually had a deadly brain infection.
When 22-year-old Hannah Farrell’s behaviour changed dramatically – making her forgetful and causing her to sleep more often – she thought she was burnt out after sitting stressful exams, then working around the clock in a deli.
But in time, the Dublin woman’s behaviour grew more and more strange, prompting a diagnosis of depression, which led to her being admitted to a psychiatric hospital in August 2017, following a rapid decline.
She said:
“I didn’t feel depressed. Deep down, I knew something more sinister was going on, but I felt as if doctors were assuming I just didn’t want to accept help for a mental health condition.
“To this day, I have nightmares about being in a psychiatric hospital. My memories are very hazy, almost like it was a dream.
I can remember odd details, like all the couches being green, and falling asleep there on the first night – and then, nothing. For three months after that, it’s just blank.”
Piecing together what happened next by speaking to doctors and relatives, Hannah, who has now recovered and is completing a psychology degree at Dublin’s National College of Ireland, has been told that, two days after arriving at the psychiatric hospital, a medic became concerned that her problem was neurological, not psychological.
An MRI scan then revealed that she was suffering from encephalitis – a rare but serious inflammation of the brain.
Referred to Dublin’s St Vincent’s Hospital, her life hung in the balance as she was pumped full of antibiotics and given 13 different plasma transfusions.
Then, on 12 November 2017, she suddenly “woke up” and began responding to her family – a poignant moment which they caught on camera – after months of being unable to walk or talk.
“I had been almost catatonic,” she explained. “I couldn’t speak and had lost so much weight.”
“I was on a feeding tube and had to have my saliva sucked away every few minutes to stop me choking. My family had been by my bedside, talking to me throughout, even though I couldn’t respond.”
“Then, that November day, my mum said, ‘I’m so tired, are you?’ and I just replied ‘Yes.’ It was like I’d suddenly woken up.”
Hannah told how her nightmare began back in the summer of 2017 when, having just finished her second-year exams, she started working long hours in a deli and was under a lot of stress.
So, when she initially developed flu-like symptoms, both she and her GP thought she was simply run down.
Then, three weeks later, she woke with her glands so swollen that she was in agony, prompting medics to prescribe her a course of antibiotics.
“I was supposed to be visiting my brother in London two weeks later, so I took the antibiotics and hoped for the best,” she said. “Looking back, it wasn’t the wisest decision to go, but I really didn’t want to miss out on seeing him.
“The first warning sign came when I was packing and couldn’t find the €200 I had changed up into pounds. Ordinarily, I’d be really stressed, but I just didn’t care and didn’t see it as a big deal.
“Then, when I got to London, my brother took one look at me and said I seemed really out of sorts. The whole trip, I basically stayed in his apartment sleeping. We never went sightseeing or did any of the other things we had planned.”
Back home, Hannah’s behaviour grew more and more chaotic. She recalls not looking after herself and struggling to perform everyday tasks like showering and tidying up.
Increasingly forgetful, she would often lose things and, to this day, has no memory of her grandmother passing away on 17 July.
She added: “I don’t remember the funeral, but apparently I was acting really strangely and couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
“My speech also began to be affected, and would be very slurred and slow. I have no idea how, but I kept working right up until I was admitted to hospital.
“I have vague memories of customers getting angry with me when I couldn’t answer them, or gave them the wrong change as I got confused.”
Eventually, she was diagnosed with depression and referred to a therapist – but during the session, her speech became so slurred she could barely be understood, prompting her to return to the doctor.
She continued: “I took my mum into the room with me, as I could barely speak. Whenever I tried to, the words just wouldn’t come out.
“I think the doctors thought I just wasn’t accepting help, and so I was referred to a psychiatric hospital.”
There, medics became concerned Hannah’s problem was neurological and, two days after she arrived, she was booked in for an MRI scan.
While waiting for the MRI, her condition deteriorated to the point where she could hardly move and her eyes became extremely sensitive to light.
And, when the scan revealed a cyst measuring around 1.5cm in the centre of her brain, she was whisked to St Vincent’s Hospital.
“That actually turned out to be unconnected to the encephalitis, but in a way, it was almost lucky as it flagged me up to neurologists and meant they leapt into action,” she said.
Following blood tests and another MRI scan, Hannah had a lumbar puncture to test the fluid around her brain and spinal cord – the results of which revealed she had anti-nmda receptor encephalitis, an autoimmune version of the condition.
According to the charity The Encephalitis Society, who have been of invaluable support to Hannah, this is caused by the immune system attacking the brain in error, resulting in symptoms including confusion, altered personality or behaviour, psychosis, hallucinations and memory loss.
Following her official diagnosis, which came in September 2017, Hannah was on the brink of death, as medics tried everything to save her.
When 13 different plasma exchanges – a procedure that removes plasma from the blood and replaces it with new plasma fluid – failed to make any difference, things looked grave.
But then, on 12 November, she suddenly roused and began to respond to her parents.
From there, she went from strength to strength and was walking again in just two weeks, although her memory was greatly affected.
“My mind was stuck back in the summer, months earlier,” she said, adding that her speech was also very slurred at first. “I would get very confused, and have a 10-15 minute memory before it would be wiped, then I’d ask again why I was in hospital, with no clue of what had happened.
“I missed out on a lot, like my nephew saying his first word and taking his first steps. When I saw photos of him, he was suddenly older.
“People I’ve known for years would come and visit me, and I wouldn’t recognise them.”
Finally, in December 2017, after 105 days, Hannah was discharged from hospital.
In February 2018 she started speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, Dublin.
Slowly, her speech returned to normal, her memory began to improve and she even returned to her studies, which she had put on hold.
“Now, I am more forgetful than I was before, but my memory has improved a lot from when I first came round in November 2017,” she said. “I’ve learnt to cope by being organised. I set loads of alarms and reminders, and have sticky notes all over my room.”
After returning to university, Hannah submitted her final thesis – poignantly written on brain injuries – in April this year, and is now gearing up to take her third year exams.
By speaking out, she hopes to both thank The Encephalitis Society, who have helped her feel less alone, as well as the medical staff in St Vincent’s and the National Rehabilitation Hospital, and to raise awareness of the condition that has claimed months of her memories.
Adding that she also wants to praise her boyfriend Ross, 22, for his unwavering support, she said:
“Encephalitis is often misdiagnosed, and it’s scary how many people haven’t heard of it. Even doctors need to be better informed, as reading about something in a medical book is very different to coming up against it in real life.
“If people are more aware of the symptoms, they can look out for those changes in behaviour like I had.
“Mentally, this has been very overwhelming. At first, I cried every day, but then survival mode kicked in and I realised it won’t help me to dwell – I have to keep going.
“I do worry about relapsing and getting sick again, but I don’t want to become my illness. This isn’t me – it’s something that happened to me, and I am so lucky to have survived.”
For information, visit www.encephalitis.info
Press Association
____________________
**Comment*
Where to even start…..
Thank God for the medics who spoke up for this poor girl!
Notice the patient was quite aware she didn’t feel depressed, yet the doctors assumed. (Assuming makes an ass out of u and me & doctors).
Sudden change in behavior should be a red-flag to everyone – especially trained doctors!
This is happening more and more, yet is considered to be rare: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/01/panspandas-steroids-autoimmune-disease-lymemsids-the-need-for-medical-collaboration/ Two stories are presented in this link – Susannah Cahalan’s story from the book, “Brain on Fire,” who had a similar auto-immune brain issue, and then the story of Patrik who had Lyme disease which morphed into Autoimmune encephalopathy.
Lyme/MSIDS, PANS, PANDAS, & autoimmune encephalopathy can all be interconnected and we need knowledgable practitioners who can recognize this as it’s not going away anytime soon.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/27/pans-pandas-autoimmune-encephalitis-rickert-hong/
How many people have to get this before they quit saying it’s rare? https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/142440-autoimmune-encephalitis-not-rare-and-increasing Many clinicians still consider autoimmune encephalitis to be a “diagnosis of exclusion” or “rare” when compared to infectious encephalitis. Results of this study contradict that presumption and serve as an eye-opener. Detection of autoimmune encephalitis is increasing over time. According to the results from this population-based study, its prevalence and incidence are comparable to infectious encephalitis.
Also, Lyme/MSIDS can clearly be a part of this picture: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/11/06/diagnosing-treating-autoimmune-encephalitis-in-patients-with-persistent-lyme-symptoms/
Here, LLMD Dr. Cameron gives a rebuttal to Wormer’s statement that no such thing as Lyme encephalitis exists: http://danielcameronmd.com/patients-should-be-warned-of-lyme-disease-complications-including-lyme-encephalopathy/
Then he goes on to list many cases. Wormser lives in a different reality.
More on Anti-nmda receptor encephalitis: https://www.antinmdafoundation.org/the-illness/what-is-anti-nmda-receptor-encephalitis/
To read one doctor’s advice concerning patients with Lyme/MSIDS & autoimmune encephalitis: https://lymemd.blogspot.com/2017/08/autoimmune-encephalitis-and-lyme.html
Key information from link:
The dogma that Lyme patients should never receive steroids or immunosuppressive agents is not always true…With antibiotic therapy there may be a dramatic response: they get much worse. This is even more the case with therapy directed at Babesia and Bartonella….This is not a Herxheimer reaction. This is the most crucial point of this post. Continued therapy will not lead to improvement. A Herxheimer reaction is caused by a mini-cytokine-storm. It is normal, although exaggerated response to killing germs. This other reaction is caused by exacerbation of an autoimmune response: the production of self-directed antibodies. This is very troublesome and difficult to manage….The disease is very complex and multifaceted. Something to keep in mind when patients do not respond to standard therapy as expected.
https://www.bustle.com/p/7-conditions-lyme-disease-gets-misdiagnosed-as-17041598
Lyme disease is a notoriously difficult condition to test for, and many doctors aren’t knowledgeable about it, which leads lots of Lyme patients to get misdiagnosed. The misdiagnoses of Lyme range from physical illnesses to psychological ones and often occur because Lyme can affect any organ system in the body in a multitude of ways, leading it to be labeled the “great imitator.”
What further compounds the confusion is that many people don’t notice contracting Lyme. “Infectious nymphal ticks are tiny — poppy seed sized — and tick bites can often go unnoticed. Most people never know they were bitten,” Sunjya K. Schweig, MD, scientific advisor to Bay Area Lyme Foundation, tells Bustle.
“The current ‘gold standard’ diagnostic for Lyme disease misses up to 60 percent of cases of early stage Lyme disease. If caught early, most cases of Lyme disease can be treated, but it is commonly misdiagnosed due to lack of awareness and unreliable diagnostic tests. If not treated promptly, Lyme may progress to a debilitating stage.”
Late-stage Lyme symptoms include paralysis, arthritis, neurological problems, headaches, cognitive impairment, memory problems, hearing and vision problems, inflammation of the brain (meningitis), and inflammation of the heart (carditis or pericarditis), Dr. Schweig says. But when people present with these symptoms, doctors don’t usually think to test for Lyme.
“It is important to recognize that Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the US, and the diagnosis should always be part of an appropriate differential diagnosis,” Dr. Schweig says. “There are about 329,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year.”
Here are some conditions that Lyme is commonly mistaken for, according to experts.
“The symptoms reported by patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia are almost identical to those associated with chronic Lyme disease,” Bill Rawls, MD, an integrative health expert on Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses, tells Bustle. These include joint pain, stiffness, fatigue, and brain fog. It’s unknown what exactly causes fibromyalgia, but Dr. Rawls believes it’s likely that it is usually caused by Lyme and/or other microbes.
Multiple Sclerosis is a central nervous system disease that affects myelin, the substance surrounding nerve fibers, causing symptoms like numbness, weakness, poor coordination, and vision problems. It has been linked to a variety of microbes including Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria known to cause Lyme, as well as chlamydia and the Espstein-Barr virus, Dr. Rawls says.
Lyme can cause pain, swelling, stiffness, and loss of function in the joints — similar symptoms to osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, Timothy J. Sellati, Ph.D., the Global Lyme Alliance’s chief scientific officer, tells Bustle. You can sometimes distinguish these conditions because Lyme is more likely to affect the large joints of the legs and occasionally the wrists, while other types of arthritis are more often in the hands, wrists, shoulders, knees, and feet. But the distinction isn’t always that clear-cut, so they’re often confused.
One common byproduct of Lyme’s effect on the brain is impaired concentration and memory, which can be confused with disorders like ADHD, Daniel Cameron, MD, MPH, an internist and epidemiologist who specializes in treating Lyme, tells Bustle. The brain fog and sleep disturbances that many people with Lyme experience compounds these issues.
In older people, these symptoms can sometimes be diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease — and in fact, some research has linked Alzheimer’s to Borrelia burgdorferi. Research has also suggested that lipopeptides, the fatty acids created by Lyme bacteria, could interfere with communication between neurons, which may explain the memory and concentration difficulties.
People with chronic illnesses, especially women, often face the misconception that the root of their symptoms is psychological. This is especially true for Lyme. Lyme can cause a range of mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, and rage, leading many Lyme patients to be diagnosed with mental illness, Dr. Cameron says.
It’s difficult to tell whether a psychiatric illness is caused by Lyme, but a sudden onset of psychiatric symptoms with no apparent cause, especially in conjunction with a tick bite or other Lyme symptoms, could point toward it.
Dr. Rawls believes anyone diagnosed with the most common Lyme misdiagnoses should look into the possibility that their condition is being caused by Lyme, co-infections, or similar microbes. But treatment doesn’t mean taking a round of antibiotics, which are often ineffective for chronic infections. Most people with Lyme have many different microbes that are very antibiotic-resistant, he explains, so the key is not to go after them in isolation but to strengthen the gut and immune system in order to keep them at bay.
“Restoration of normal immune system functions with natural therapy and suppression of stealth microbes with herbal therapy is often highly effective for restoring a normal state of health in affected individuals,” he says. “This approach is safe, nontoxic, and not dependent on a diagnosis. It should be the foundation for therapy for every one of these chronic illnesses.”
____________________
**Comment**
This idea that antibiotics don’t work is a bit premature. The studies have numerous flaws and have only been on a certain subset of patients. All I know is I’d more than likely be dead without them (my husband as well), with many other patients stating the same. Whenever you read someone’s opinion on Lyme treatment, always take into account what they are selling. Dr. Rawls is selling herbs, plain and simple. It’s a business for him. Just keep that in mind. While a patient himself, he has a vested interest in getting you to buy his products.
Recently, an article came out stating there’s an “untreatable” form of Lyme. Read my rebuttal here: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/29/is-the-sky-truly-going-to-fall-for-patients-with-the-untreatable-form-of-lyme-disease/
This IS treatable. It very well may not be curable, but then this is nothing new. The chicken pox virus isn’t truly curable in that it lies around in our spine – same with EBV. It’s only when our bodies become weak and out of balance that these things rear their little, ugly heads. So immune regulation IS important, but never, ever buy the line that antibiotics don’t work for this. (Of course there’s always exceptions to each and every rule).
Many advocates believe the Newsweek article is part of an orchestrated ploy to sell an upcoming Lyme vaccine. Authorities refuse to do transmission studies, drug effectiveness studies (on chronic patients), and so many other important issues needing resolution, but they keep coming back to the vaccine issue like buzzards drawn to dead bodies for the simple reason they smell a lot of money and many through the years have patents on the vaccine itself as well as Lyme test kits and other metabolomics: ConflictReport (Patents start on page 80) Conflicts of interest abound in every aspect of this.
As to the Lyme vaccine, please, please, do your reading: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/22/why-we-care-so-strongly-about-a-potential-lyme-vaccine/
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/01/lyme-vaccine-fail-safety-ignored/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Published on Aug 28, 2017
Of course, by Lyme disease, I actually mean Lyme/MSIDS, as we are typically infected with much more than just Lyme (borrelia), which means our cases are more severe, of longer duration, & necessitate numerous medications: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/10/30/study-shows-lyme-msids-patients-infected-with-many-pathogens-and-explains-why-we-are-so-sick/
MSIDS = multi, systemic infectious disease syndrome = one sick dog.
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 