Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness in Reading with Style

Aug 02, 2025 Connie G rated it really liked it

Shelves: medicine-health, psychology, autobiography-memoir, non-fiction, new-york, mental-health

Author Susannah Cahalan was a journalist for the "New York Post" when she became ill with a mysterious disease. She started having sensory issues, numbness on her left side, and hallucinations. After she had seizures, she was misdiagnosed with various psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcohol withdrawal (even though she was not a heavy drinker).

When she was admitted to NYU Medical Center, she was given a bed on the epilepsy floor because her seizures continued. Author Susannah Cahalan was a journalist for the "New York Post" when she became ill with a mysterious disease. She started having sensory issues, numbness on her left side, and hallucinations. After she had seizures, she was misdiagnosed with various psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcohol withdrawal (even though she was not a heavy drinker).

When she was admitted to NYU Medical Center, she was given a bed on the epilepsy floor because her seizures continued. It was a hellish month before she was finally diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a rare autoimmune disease which inflames the brain. The disease had only been discovered three years prior to her diagnosis. She was treated with steroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, and plasmapheresis.

Her parents and her boyfriend were wonderfully supportive throughout her ordeal. When the author wrote her book, she had to interview them and her medical specialists since the disease had left her with very little memory of her month of hell. She used her journalistic skills in researching her own story. Although she recovered her physical and cognitive abilities, some patients have more residual issues or die.

If the University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr Dalmau had not identified the antibody, or if neurologist Dr Najjar had not read about the study in a medical journal, where would Cahalan be today? She would probably be in a psychiatric ward, or a nursing home with brain damage. Cases like hers show how important it is for good medical research to continue, and funding should not be a political prize determined by people without a strong medical background. Everyone can become ill--conservatives, liberals, rich, and poor. Cahalan's parents were terrified that her mystery disease would not be diagnosed, and they were very fortunate that good medical research gave them an answer.

"Brain on Fire" was written in a way where the reader was given the information on the same timeline as Cahalan, her parents, and her boyfriend. It kept the tension high as her condition became worse when her disease was first misdiagnosed. Cahalan is an inspiring person who continues to lecture about her experiences to raise awareness of this rare encephalitis. ...more

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Sep 21, 2016 Jen from Quebec :0) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: totally-overrated, female-authors

Not exactly what I thought it would be-- you need to really enjoy medical books/medical jargon. If it had been written in a more PERSONAL style, it could have been a great read, I think....I was HOPING for personal insight, instead I got medical facts. Bummer.

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