I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

Post by switchbak » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

cgh wrote: post #15

My wife has a cardiac autoimmune disease that was similarly misdiagnosed (including an appalling “it’s all in your head” from her family MD at the time). We underwent a year of immense stress. Just days before her probable death, she had a pacemaker and defibrillator installed, which saved her life. I’m not entirely sure why I’m mentioning this, other than I sympathize deeply with your wife. What an absolute ordeal.

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 6:24 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #17

somenameforme wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDC mortality tables [1] are kind of eye opening for those who don't realize how brief life is. Average age range on HN is probably in the 25-44 year old bracket. That bracket has an approximate mortality rate of 140/100k per year. HN has what, 5 million or so monthly users? So that means of all of 'us', it's expected that around 7,000 HN readers age 25-44, die each year. That's fairly close to 1 death per hour. [1]…

Your CDC figure is an average over all genders. Assuming hacker news readers are disproportionately men, the mortality rate is even higher, since men die younger than women on average.

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

jr3592 wrote: post #19

bonsai_spool wrote: post #16

One thing that may be intriguing is that this is a relatively new diagnosis (first described in 2007). There's so much medicine to discover and we need to keep supporting a biomedical research enterprise that can find reversible treatments to disorders that would otherwise be difficult to treat (his symptoms, for example, would be thought of as a schizophrenia manifestation in another era) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…

Yes, the biomedical world needs to go through the same boom that tech went through in the last 20 years. The problem is accessibility. Tech grew largely because of how accessible the technology is. Biomedical research is still very difficult to get into, and as a result seriously curtails the potential progress we as a society could make. I don't know what the solution is but there's got to be an easier way to tinker…

Post by logicchains » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #12

jakobnissen wrote: post #4

This sounds horrifying. It’s one of those stories that makes me think in just how many ways our bodies or minds can break or malfunction in terrifying ways. Any one of us could, right now, carry a lethal tumor that hasn’t been discovered. Best of luck to you, and get well. I’m glad it didn’t get even worse before it was treated.

CDC mortality tables [1] are kind of eye opening for those who don't realize how brief life is. Average age range on HN is probably in the 25-44 year old bracket. That bracket has an approximate mortality rate of 140/100k per year. HN has what, 5 million or so monthly users? So that means of all of 'us', it's expected that around 7,000 HN readers age 25-44, die each year. That's fairly close to 1 death per hour. [1]…

Post by WarmWash » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

sheepolog wrote: post #20

cgh wrote: post #15

My wife has a cardiac autoimmune disease that was similarly misdiagnosed (including an appalling “it’s all in your head” from her family MD at the time). We underwent a year of immense stress. Just days before her probable death, she had a pacemaker and defibrillator installed, which saved her life. I’m not entirely sure why I’m mentioning this, other than I sympathize deeply with your wife. What an absolute ordeal.

It's been super eye-opening to me as an adult how frequent misdiagnoses are. I understand it's good for a doctor to sound confident, but "confidently wrong" is imo much worse than "cautiously wrong". We really need better imaging/diagnostic tools that cut down on human bias; hoping for a star trek tricorder someday.