It appears that recently neurologists are identifying more and more cases of autoimmune encephalitis. In particular, cases which present psychosis without limbic-associated features (i.e. seizures) which previously ended up with a diagnosis of schizophrenia are found to have an autoimmune etiology. How prevalent are these cases, and more importantly, how many are being missed?
You may be interested in a book by Susannah Cahalan, "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness." She experienced this first hand and wrote about her experience. Since her memory of that month is limited, she utilized her physicians, nurses, patient chart, and journals kept by her parents. Dr. Josep Dalmau (University of Pennsylvania) was the only physician to correctly diagnose and treat her. Uniquely, once treated, she recovered fairly quickly.
I read it and it was incredible! Thank you for the suggestion just the same.
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