Encephalitis - Andrew Gallant's Blog

Encephalitis

Jun 3, 2026

I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. It is<br>an autoimmune disorder where your body&rsquo;s normally helpful antibodies<br>start acting strangely. This leads to inflammation in the brain. This<br>short blog briefly discusses some of my experience and prognosis.

Target audience : Anyone relying on my work for their own projects.

It all started with flu-like symptoms: heart racing, night sweats, the chills<br>and trouble sleeping. But no congestion or cough. I also felt really off<br>mentally. A deep sort of anxiety, along with panic attacks, that I had never<br>experienced before in my 38 years of life. It was terrifying, especially<br>because I had no idea what was causing it. There were no life events or obvious<br>triggers that precipitated the psychological symptoms, nor was there any<br>obvious biological explanation for the physical symptoms at the time. This was<br>only the beginning.

Over the ensuing weeks my physical symptoms progressed to chronic jaw pain,<br>making it incredibly difficult to eat. I also had problems with my balance.<br>As someone who has easily juggled 3 balls and played sports for my entire<br>childhood, I couldn&rsquo;t catch a ball lobbed to me from a few feet away by my<br>5 year old son. My psychological symptoms were perhaps even more horrifying<br>to me. I had suicidal ideation and suffered from psychosis. Specifically,<br>delusions and auditory hallucinations.

The problems with balance and the overwhelming nature of my psychological<br>symptoms eventually led me to fall and hit my head. This in turn led myself<br>and my wife to decide that I couldn&rsquo;t be safe at home. And that brought us<br>to my first emergency room visit. They cleared me physically and sent me to an<br>in-patient psychiatric hospital, which, at the time, I welcomed because my<br>symptoms had progressed beyond what we could manage at home.

It is common for anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis to be misdiagnosed as (in<br>my case) generalized anxiety disorder or schizophrenia. Since I had been<br>cleared physically, getting out of the psychiatric hospital quickly to see<br>a neurologist proved difficult. This was the single point, in retrospect, where<br>our health care system let me down. It took a lucky connection with someone who<br>happened to be a doctor to get me out of the psychiatric facility and into the<br>neurology department at Brigham and Women&rsquo;s Hospital in Boston.

After that, I was in and out of Brigham and Women&rsquo;s Hospital for almost a<br>month. I had several MRIs, a lumbar puncture, EEGs and many more tests. As a<br>result of what I now see as a life saving treatment protocol, I very quickly<br>received intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and methylprednisolone, even<br>before my diagnosis was known. In particular, MRIs revealed a lesion in my<br>brain. However, confirming a diagnosis of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis<br>would come later since it is best done with at least a positive antibody test<br>in your cerebral spinal fluid. Results from this specific test typically take<br>a couple weeks to come back.

By the time I received my official diagnosis, the IVIG and steroids had kicked<br>in and I was feeling much better, albeit, not nearly at 100%. I&rsquo;ve since<br>continued on a course of steroids that I am now already tapering off of.<br>I&rsquo;m also tapering off of medications I had been prescribed as a result of<br>my psychological symptoms, before encephalitis was known to be the cause.<br>Moreover, I am now officially in the CIELO clinical trial for testing the<br>effectiveness of satralizumab in treating anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

While autoimmune disorders don&rsquo;t have a known cure, the prognosis for<br>anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is very good. My doctors have said that it was<br>caught early (despite the early tangent into a psychiatric hospital), and that<br>this is associated with better long term outcomes. Indeed, I am feeling great<br>now and recovery is exceeding my own expectations.

There is some speculation that anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis could partially<br>explain past accounts of demonic possession. Many of the people in my life,<br>close or not, could tell that there was something seriously wrong with<br>me. Without science and modern medicine, I can only imagine what kind of<br>speculation folks might have ventured for the underlying cause.

My full story of this disease of chaos is quite long and I&rsquo;m not sure I will<br>ever publish it in full. However, Susannah Cahalan did just that in her book,<br>Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. There is also a movie adaptation (as<br>of June 2026) available for free on YouTube. My disease didn&rsquo;t progress as<br>far as Susannah&rsquo;s, nor did it do so in the same way. For example, I didn&rsquo;t<br>have any (known) seizures or catatonia. The rest of her symptoms, especially<br>the psychosis, were quite similar.

This has been the absolute worst experience of my life, bar none. It is also<br>the explanation behind my higher-than-usual inactivity...