A 16-year-old girl in California went to an emergency department after seeing a flying green dinosaur and hearing voices telling her to harm others. These experiences were hallucinations: she saw and heard things that were not there. She also felt that someone was following her. At hospital, she was shaking and sweating, with a fast heartbeat and rapid, shallow breathing.
Doctors suspected a physical illness. Early brain tests did not explain her symptoms, but a later test found antibodies attacking her own nerve tissue. Antibodies normally help the body fight threats. She was diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis, a rare condition in which the body's defence system attacks nervous tissue and causes inflammation.
Treatment included medicines to reduce inflammation and calm the harmful immune response. She also had five blood treatments to remove harmful antibodies. After almost two months, she left hospital. Her symptoms improved over the following year, allowing her to stop medicines for her mental health symptoms. However, she continued treatment to control the immune attack.
