Balance and speech issues

As my balance and speech issues got worst and my word finding and memory continued to worsen and to scare the hell out of me I kept thinking it also was stress related as my poor mom was suffering from Dementia and I was the sole caregiver and her disease was getting worst. I was getting calls at work from her constantly and from her social workers, and her doctors, and I would have to go pick her up in the middle of the night for she was scared and hallucinating. I felt so sorry for her, and so scared for her, but she would not move in with us, I would drop her off at her apartment in the morning and pick her up when she called at night scared. So you can easily see why I and the primary doctor kept saying stress.

But my symptoms were getting so weird. Some of the things I did or said were not me. I got depression, and anger issues, I flew off the handle easier then normal. I said weird things to the customers at work when I was still working. My head felt like it would explode at times, or numb in the base of my skull. My eyes would be blurry like your glasses are dirty, I would drive and look up at the street lights and get weird feeling, I would have to look away the lights bothered me so much it scared me. In fact the neurologist told me I could no longer drive any distance just very close to home which made it difficult. My hearing got worst. I would be afraid of falling in the shower when I closed my eyes. I had such weird symptoms.

Dr. Santilan wanted me to go to Mayo, but my insurance would not cover it, so as I did some research I found that the University of Chicago a teaching Hospital had an excellent scleroderma clinic and a great neurology area. So Dr. Santillan sent me on my way.

I was a little disappointed with my Chicago's visit, I felt they did not even exam me, just looked at my existing charts took more blood that confirmed my ANA but did show up an interesting result on the lab report.

My Thyroid was out of wack for which they upped my thyroid meds almost double. But more importantly my thyroid blood work showed up a very high Thyroid Peroxidase AutoAbs of over 1200 where normal is below 30. That is all that was needed to have Dr. Santillan dx me with what was causing all the rest of the problems and that was Hashimoto's Encephalitis. If you research this rare disease it will describe it as a relapsing encephalopathy occurring in association with Hashimoto's disease (not always true) with high titers of antithyroid antibodies. Clinically the condition presents with altered consciousness, confusion, focal or generalized seizures, myoclonus and episodes of stroke like deterioration. But there are so many other symptoms that can and do occur before you are diagnosed that is why the doctors have such a hard time to diagnose a patient.

There are several treatment options but the first one the doctors usually try with great success high pulse IV Steroid treatment with Solu-Medrol (methylprednisolone sodium succinate). This treatment generally is given between 3 to 7 days for which I had it for 5. There is a tapering dose that is sent home with the patient which commonly starts with 60mg per day and tapers slowly down over many months. Some are then started on Immune suppressants which some of which are  Imuran, Cellcept, Methotrexate and if these do not seem to do the trick the doctor may try IVIG which is an Intravenous Immunoglobulin treatment, and also there is Plasmapheresis also called Plasma exchange or Plasma Transfer this is where they take the patients blood and filter it through machine that separates the plasma from actual blood cells It maybe replaced by salilne, albumin, or donor plasma.  the reconstituted solution is then returned to the patent.