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I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

burntsushi.net

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Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#91

My wife had anti-NMDA negative Encephalitis two years ago after suffering severe seizures out of the blue - her diagnosis in retrospect is NORSE (new onset refractory status epilepticus). She was put into an induced coma for 2 months, it took a long time before they realised it was encephalitis. Whilst she survived, her recovery is still ongoing. She was 32 when it happened and will never work again due to her brain…

Oh my, I'm so sorry to hear that. She'll be in my thoughts.

Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#94
Very rare disease, expected to be misdiagnosed as psychiatric. I admit I would (neurologist here) But you were luckily treated by an excellent neurologic center.

The lesson learned is that there are rare diseases (<1/10.000-100.000) but as they are so many, they form an important minority next to common ones (1/100-1000). Just don't forget them when data don't fit well. Such estimations is a hard dexterity of doctors that cannot be rivalled by AI.

Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#95

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.

When you look at how molecules like RNA work, and krebs cycle, and the billions of cells we are composed of, and so on, it always strikes me as astronomically lucky that we function at all. Like how can this assemblage of Rube Goldberg machines function for more than 1 seconds without catastrophically falling apart?

I think multicellular creatures on earth are just so complex they are basically ineffable.. We can understand certain general principles and statistical trends, but the entire system holistically is incomprehensible for a human level intelligence.

Kind of analogous to ML, we absolutely understand how each neuron works, we built them! But we often dont really understand how the resulting model works.

Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#96

My ex has mast cell activation syndrome. We would have to call for an ambulance 3-4 times a month because some days eating a grape could cause her to go into anaphylactic shock. She was allergic to whatever her body felt like at any given time. She was misdiagnosed/undiagnosed for 18 years. I was baffled by this, and I myself have spent numerous hours down the rabbit hole of nootropics, and had a DNA test and was res…

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Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The part that doctors see that individuals don't is the flood of people who are chronically freaking out over nothing. There are going to be casualties of doctor's triage, and those stories will be beyond upsetting, but most would agree its better than an 8 month wait to get an MRI.

Right. For every example of a doctor missing a diagnosis, there 100 examples of that doctor correctly telling people that they are likely suffering from a temporary condition that will work itself out or not be resolved by any further testing or medicine.

Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My favorite side effect is that I now love all foods. Prior to this, I was a rather picky eater. Now I love everything! I feel like there's a burntsushi joke hiding in there somewhere. All the best Andrew.

There is actually haha. I've always hated sushi. And sushi is now on my shortlist to try again. I can't wait. (My handle comes from graffiti I found on the booth of a hot dog stand in Worcester MA called Coney Island[1]. I thought it was a cute oxymoron and adopted it on a silly whim. I only later learned that some sushi is indeed cooked.) [1]: https://coneyislandlunch.com/

Man, the origin of your screen name is the same level of lore as Rust being named after fungi, and not corrosion. Love it! Glad you're in better health again. Been using your software for nearly 10 years spanning before and after my career started. Thanks for all the work you do in open source.

Cheers

Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#99

My ex has mast cell activation syndrome. We would have to call for an ambulance 3-4 times a month because some days eating a grape could cause her to go into anaphylactic shock. She was allergic to whatever her body felt like at any given time. She was misdiagnosed/undiagnosed for 18 years. I was baffled by this, and I myself have spent numerous hours down the rabbit hole of nootropics, and had a DNA test and was res…

I just learned I have this as well (not as severe). Quercitin helped me. I am taking I think 1600mg (with bromelain) per day. How much was she taking, and what is the mast cell stabilizer that helped, if you don't mind my asking?

I've been dealing with my symptoms for 17 years this year and Quercitin + Zyrtec + Pepcid is the first thing that's made a dent in it. I started a few weeks ago and it's been amazing but I'm not experiencing full relief yet.

This was the combo Claude recommended I start with for a trial, one message after I told it my symptoms. No doctor has ever been able to help.

Re: I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis

#100
IMHO if you have a sufficiently empirical bent of mind, you are both more equipped and more invested in a good diagnosis and analysis of your own conditions. I have a personal EMR system that I run for the family and I get as much data as I need to tackle health issues. If you do, it is important to maintain epistemic hygiene: you need to correctly consider base rates, false diagnoses, and so on.

If you are able to do these things, it's worthwhile to record everything you want: full body MRIs, CT scans of the head, all your X-rays, your blood records and so on. Other countries are easier to get these in, but even in the US a full body MRI is under $2k, Ulta will test your blood for you, and so on. You can't get most medication here easily because it is prescription-gated[0], but many things are available in India (where I'm from).

Neurological conditions are a pretty big risk, because self-analysis is using degraded machinery at that point, though. Admittedly, a hole in the way I handle things. This is another one of those situations where it is valuable to have a wife.

0: Almost all self-analysis encounters the problem that a third-party to the interaction is the one usually paying, and so most players cater to that

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