Encephalitis

[panacasummit]

I'm just recovering from encephalitis. 43 year old man been healthy as a horse all my life and now this. I'm left with what appear to be permenant disabilities including oscillopsia, balance issues, and tingling sensations all over but mostly in my scalp and the back of my neck. From what I'm reading I guess things could have been a whole lot worse though. Just wondering if there is anybody else out there putting up with this, paranoid about reoccurances etc. Possibly going to be a career killer for me as well which is very frustrating. Anyway, looking for anybody that can relate.

[BLYTHE]

I can relate. I had HSE at 26 in 2004. I do fine with my motorskills, but emotionally I'm a wreck. I get confused easily and anger even more easy. It's put a damper on my career decision as well. You can e-mail me at blytheplunkett@aol.com. I'd love to talk more and exchange information.

[terry161157]

I could cry just by reading all of your letters, I truly feel for you all, but most of I totally understand your situations, I am a 51 year old man who was (told by my mum and dad 40 odd years later) 24 hours away from an irreversible coma due to encephalitis, I was a 2 year old baby at the time, our family GP at the time told my mum and dad that I was a very intelligent baby at 1 year old for my age, he told my mum that I would acheive great things due to my intellingence, but this was before encephalitis entered my life. For the past 40 years I have just believed that I was just a slow learner with a bad temper, poor concentration levels and a bad memory plus other problems.
I have had many tests over the past 18 years for neurological problems that I have suffered, without any definite conclusion (finally having brain function tests in London and being told that encephalitis had left me with a lesion on my brain), but thanks to this site I now know why things are as they are regarding my life. I am proud of the achievements that I have made (PLEASE DONT THINK I,M BEING BIGHEADED) in my life. I now work as a part time football coach and as a (social)youth worker mentoring young people, I still to this day suffer from the after effects of encephalitis from 49 years ago, I suffer everyday things such as speech disorders (without warning my spoken words cannot be understood at any given time or place, very embarrasing when talking to large groups of people) I forget simple things, concentration is awful, always has been since being a small child, unsteady gait with no warning, I get easily irritable, feeling high or low randomly, I also get jerky movements throughout my whole body at random times, but for me the worst is the falls which come on with absolutely no warning at all, I suffer from falls due to how I can only describe as feeling as if my brain has been disconnected from all the nerves and muscles within my whole body( its still a scary feeling) ,I know its happening and I can do absolutely nothing at all to stop it, and it is then that I will just fall with no warning whatsoever, as soon as this happens I get back up feeling like crap, as I write I feel as though things are steadily getting worse over the past 6 or so years, but this could just be due to being an age related thing (who knows eh), I am now writng my autobiography of a life in which I have had so many experiences good and bad, but for me my challenge is to continue being as good a person and as successful as I can be and more to the point is to have a positive influence on people, and to help young and old alike..

Love to all

Terry [moderator note: e-mail address has been removed] / www.youthsupportnetwork.webeden.co.uk