Early symptoms of immune encephalitis

Once many diseases occur, they will cause great harm to people, so most diseases can effectively avoid subsequent serious problems as long as they are discovered in time. Although immune encephalitis is a disease with a low incidence rate, it can cause huge harm if it is not discovered early. What are the early symptoms of immune encephalitis? When immune encephalitis occurs, there will be slurred speech, memory loss, and auditory hallucinations, and it must be distinguished from common influenza.

Autoimmune encephalitis refers to a broad class of diseases caused by the immune system's antibodies responding to antigens in the central nervous system.

As we all know, the immune system is the body's "defense guard" that plays a role in fighting the invasion of foreign pathogens, monitoring and cleaning the body's internal environment. Under normal circumstances, the human immune system only "attacks" (produces antibodies and immune cells) foreign harmful pathogens, etc., and does not respond to self-tissue antigens.

However, in certain special circumstances, such as infection, combined malignant tumors, immune system diseases, etc., the human body will produce specific antibodies that attack the central nervous system. When autoimmune diseases attack their own brain tissue, causing brain inflammation and damage, mental and neurological symptoms may occur, and mental symptoms are often the first symptoms. When the disease becomes serious in the later stages, neurological symptoms and signs appear. This is autoimmune encephalopathy.

Autoimmune encephalitis was first reported in 2007. Although the incidence rate is low, it develops rapidly and causes great harm. The general public is not aware of it and it is easy to misdiagnose or miss the diagnosis. If the diagnosis and treatment are unscientific and untimely, it will bring a heavy burden to patients and their families.

What are the symptoms of autoimmune encephalitis?

The symptoms of autoimmune encephalitis are quite extensive and are closely related to the location of the affected central nervous system. Its symptoms mainly manifest as mental and behavioral abnormalities, with acute and subacute onset of epilepsy, cognitive dysfunction and mental symptoms as the main characteristics, such as slurred speech, memory impairment, decreased level of consciousness, agitation, hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, etc. Therefore, autoimmune encephalitis can easily be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia and the patient may be sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

In addition, the initial symptoms of autoimmune encephalitis have many similarities with those of common influenza, so many patients mistakenly think they have common influenza when they first become ill, and it is easily ignored.

The symptoms of this type of disease are similar to those of viral encephalitis and epilepsy. Therefore, if these two symptoms are present, autoimmune encephalitis should be considered and ruled out.

Early treatment is key

Autoimmune encephalitis is uncommon, but "not as rare as people think."

The treatment of autoimmune encephalitis mainly includes two aspects: first, inhibiting the production of harmful antibodies; second, reducing the level of harmful antibodies in the blood.

It is worth mentioning that scientists have found that some autoimmune encephalitis is often accompanied by benign or malignant tumors, such as ovarian teratoma, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, etc. Certain proteins in these tumor tissues usually trigger the immune system to produce harmful antibodies. Therefore, screening and removing tumors are also key steps in treating autoimmune encephalitis.

In short, the earlier autoimmune encephalitis is diagnosed and treated, and the earlier the progression of brain damage is prevented, the more beneficial it will be for the patient's recovery. Early diagnosis and treatment may completely repair the damage to brain function; delayed diagnosis and treatment will leave sequelae of varying degrees, and sometimes may cause multiple organ failure or even death.

If any of your relatives or friends experience unexplained mental or behavioral abnormalities, epilepsy, intellectual impairment, etc., you should go to the relevant department of the hospital for consultation in a timely manner. In addition, for some patients with autoimmune encephalitis whose early treatment effects are not obvious, whose treatment cycles are long, and whose conditions are critical, they should have the confidence to "persist in treatment" because the prognosis of severe autoimmune encephalitis is not disappointing, and if they persist in treatment, they may obtain an "incredible" prognosis.