- COVID-19 can cause neurological complications.
- Shelby Ponder, 23, spoke with Healthline about her experience with post-COVID-19 encephalitis, a condition that causes brain swelling.
- Vaccinating against diseases like COVID-19, which can cause encephalitis, is the best way to prevent the condition.
As a first-year law student, Kentucky resident Shelby Ponder, 23, started her dream internship with the U.S. attorney’s office on July 6, 2020.
Three days later her life changed drastically.
“Everything was perfectly normal until July 9,” Ponder told Healthline.
She started feeling sick with strep-like symptoms and immediately got tested for COVID-19. The test came back negative, and so Ponder continued on with life as usual.
“My strep-like symptoms only got worse. I was prescribed an antibiotic over telehealth, which obviously didn’t work. I continued going to work until the 13th, at which point my brain and body just snapped,” she said.
Her fever stayed between 101 and 103.9°F for 2 solid weeks despite taking ibuprofen and acetaminophen every 2 hours. She began having hallucinations.
“I don’t really remember this time very much except for the horrible fear, which I couldn’t really acknowledge in that state of mind. I had lost all motor skills. Brushing my teeth was so frustrating, and I eventually had to have my sisters bathe me and brush my hair,” she said.
After about 2 weeks, Ponder developed insomnia. Because she was drained physically and mentally, she laid in bed exhausted yet unable to sleep.
She also started having vision issues and migraine attacks, which prompted her to visit the emergency room. She stayed there for 5 days.
During that stay, Ponder was tested for COVID-19 again five times, but each result came back negative.
After undergoing an MRI that revealed extensive brain swelling, doctors diagnosed encephalitis: inflammation of the brain often due to infection.
They tested her spinal fluid and blood to look for viral and bacterial infections that cause encephalitis with no definitive answer.
She was released from the hospital with a prescription for steroids to help with the migraine episodes.
However, the medication worsened her insomnia, allowing her only 3 hours of sleep in a week.
Ponder returned to the ER, where she was referred to neurologist Dr. Daniel Lee, medical director at the Kentucky Neuroscience Institute in Lexington.
“[Shelby’s] MRI scan is consistent with encephalitis with increase signals in her temporal lobes, basal ganglia, and hypothalamus on both sides of her brain,” Lee told Healthline.
He informed Ponder that her “sleep center” had demyelinated, which occurs when nerve impulses slow or stop, causing neurological problems.
She learned her brain wasn’t making melatonin. The receptors the brain uses to accept melatonin were inactive.
Lee encouraged her to get tested for coronavirus antibodies, which came back positive in November 2020.
Source: healthline