http:\/\/www.aolhealth.com\/2010\/11\/04\/doctors-induce-5-month-coma-to-save-womans-life\/?ncid=webmail<\/a><\/p>\r\nBut as Landrigan’s case demonstrated, diagnosing a brain malady can play out like an episode of “House.”\u00a0Physicians for months were stymied and couldn’t determine exactly what was wrong with\u00a0Landrigan’s brain.\u00a0Ultimately, she received treatments at\u00a0four hospitals in several different states.<\/p>\r\n
Doctors initially thought that Landrigan has encephalitis, or swelling of the brain due to infection. But tests came back negative.\u00a0Then physicians believed that the young mother had nonconvulsive status epilepticus, which entails seizures and kills more than half the people who have it.\u00a0But that diagnosis didn’t pan out.<\/p>\r\n
At that point, doctors put Landrigan into a coma using\u00a0propofol, the powerful anesthetic\u00a0that killed pop superstar Michael Jackson. They did it because they feared that\u00a0her brain could not\u00a0continue to withstand the seizures she was having.\u00a0Later, doctors put Landrigan into an even deeper coma using pentobarbital.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0The woman’s condition worsened, and doctors then went on to a new diagnosis: That one of\u00a0Landrigan’s own antibodies was\u00a0injuring her brain.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
That, it turns out, was the answer.\u00a0Landrigan had anti-NMDA receptor antibodies, which can attack brain nerve cells, according to AOL Health. These antibodies typically appear when someone has a teratoma, which is a kind of tumor that people get in the ovaries or testes.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Doctors removed Landrigan’s ovaries and fallopians tubes, and discovered that she did in fact have a benign teratoma. Her\u00a0diagnosis was\u00a0anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.\u00a0Landrigan was then slowly brought out of her induced coma.<\/p>\r\n
Although her seizures ended once her tumor was removed, Landrigan is not back to her old self.\u00a0A year after being taken out of her coma, the mother, now 36,\u00a0remains in a wheelchair and has nerve damage, according to AOL Health.\u00a0She still expects to walk one day.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Doctors put Donna Landrigan in a coma for five months as they struggled to find out what was wrong with her. Landrigan’s tale was chronicled by AOL Health, kicking off with the painful headaches that the mother of three, then 35,\u00a0was suffering from for almost a month until she finally collapsed on her kitchen floor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[708,3,4,14],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-nmda-receptor-encephalitis","tag-brain-injury","tag-brain-injury-attorney","tag-coma"],"yoast_head":"\n
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