Mother of two dies just three weeks from mystery disease that caused fevers facial-paralysis

stefanie ballard spent the day at the pool...then thought she was coming down with a summer flu.....

A mother of two from Georgia is dead following a brief struggle with a mystery disease that began to cause brain swelling, fevers and facial paralysis just three weeks before it killed her.

Stephanie had what she thought was a summertime flu, 'but while her fever went away the next morning, she started having aches, dizziness, nausea, and then started losing her balance and muscle control,' her husband recalled. 'This hit fast.'
He continued: 'We took her to the ER at Piedmont Hospital where they were able to rule out stroke or aneurysm, and identified significant brain inflammation [sic] as the cause of her symptoms.

her immune system attacked her brain


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

swimming at the pool could be a coincidence...there is also a pic of her on a water craft so fresh water activity, but don't know how recent that pic is.......3 weeks nobody else seems to have come down with this...is it something new????

That could be either viral or bacterial encephalitis, or something like the brain-eating amoeba. With the aches and sudden fever, I'm leaning toward encephalitis. Maybe West Nile. It is not unheard of there.

Maybe she had a botched Botox injection?

a reply to: bananashooter

That's also possible. But given the two recent exposures to water, one an open body with no chlorine or filtration, still seems like infection. That's where the amoeba is found, bacteria which can cause encephalitis as well. And West Nile is carried by mosquitoes, which are always present around bodies of fresh water.

They are asking people that live near New Orleans to boil water for up to 60 days, I know this happened in Georgia but that bacteria is out there. What a terrible organism, that feeds on your brain. I was just out yesterday four wheeling and riding through hot water. Yuck

There have been a number of cases that resembled meningitis in UG and at a Tech campus, over the last few years while medical experts said it was not meningitis. They also said some cases of meningitis itself would not be unusual. One student did die earlier this year, the cause is not disclosed,


www.11alive.com...

a reply to: smurfy

There are a few drugs that can mimic the symptoms of meningitis as far at swelling of the brain and hyperthermia. Which, because it isn't caused by the immune system, I'm not referring to as a fever. On a college campus, I could see this being a possibility.
EDIT: Swelling of the brain is technically encephalitis when on a global level. Just to clarify. Meningitis is swelling of the brain stem area.

a reply to: pfishy

www.mayoclinic.org...



for those saying encephalitits, it sounds like it, but she was in icu for 3 weeks...there are 5 things they can do to diagnose..
brain imaging, spinal tap, lab test, eeg, and brain biopsy....we know they did a brain image to rule out stroke ...seems odd they couldn't figure out what it was

a reply to: research100

the pic on the watercraft was from last month (july) so it was recent

a reply to: Glassbender777

Boiling water for a few minutes surely will kill it.

What kind of amoeba only dies after being boiled for 60 days.

Scary.

originally posted by: pfishy
a reply to: smurfy

There are a few drugs that can mimic the symptoms of meningitis as far at swelling of the brain and hyperthermia. Which, because it isn't caused by the immune system, I'm not referring to as a fever. On a college campus, I could see this being a possibility.
EDIT: Swelling of the brain is technically encephalitis when on a global level. Just to clarify. Meningitis is swelling of the brain stem area.

Well, the Meninges are a protective cover of the brain and the brain stem, collectively the central nervous system.

But the point I was making was that colleges and Universities are places that Meningitis is not uncommon, whereas the students infections I was referring was said not to be Meningitis. It doesn't mention drugs either.

a reply to: smurfy

Just tossing out ideas.

a reply to: research100

.seems odd they couldn't figure out what it was

Not odd at all.

In my medical experience over the last 7 years, doctors are too busy being "specialists" they forget that patients are people. They quckly turf you onto another specialist, who in turn, dips deeply into your pocketbook, only to send you to yet another specialist.
Good luck getting a firm diagnosis.

Gone are the days of medical "care". They don't care.

They no longer cure.

It stands to reason if they don't care enough when you're alive, they won't care to find the cause of death.

a reply to: research100

I had those symptoms minus the swelling and I was diagnosed with a complicated migraine.the whole right side of my face felt like I was shot with novocaine.

I recently read about a new tick borne illness that causes these symptoms. Will try to find the name again
Link didn't work but here's info
"Fever and severe headaches caused [doctors] to have a suspicion of possible meningitis," Molloy said.

Molloy and colleagues tested blood samples sent to IMUGEN from 11,515 patients who showed up at emergency rooms, urgent care clinics, and primary care offices in New York and the New England area complaining of symptoms that suggested a tick-borne illness.

The researchers found 97 cases of BMD and were able to gather details on 51 of them, according to the study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Those patients had sought care for symptoms including, high fever, chills, headache, and muscle pain or joint pain. A full 25 percent were deemed so sick that doctors checked them into the hospital.

www.today.com... to: research100

Sounds like arsenic poisoning....a small amount can make your face go numb....I've read.