{"id":15113,"date":"2020-09-24T12:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=15113"},"modified":"2020-09-29T09:50:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T13:50:25","slug":"dr-siegel-neurologist-brain-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/dr-siegel-neurologist-brain-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Siegel: Neurologist Was Stumped by Susannah"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Who was Dr. Siegel, the neurologist who couldn&#8217;t diagnose Susannah? How did he try to help?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Siegel is a neurologist that joined Susannah&#8217;s medical team and reassured her mother. He suspected brain inflammation and pulled Dr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/souhel-najjar\/\">Souhel Najjar<\/a> into the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about Dr. Siegel, neurologist, and his contributions in Brain on Fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dr. Siegel, Neurologist<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Siegel arrives. <strong>He\u2019s a world-famous neurologist, and he assures Susannah\u2019s mom that everything will be fine.<\/strong> <strong>Susannah\u2019s mom clings to his words as if they\u2019re a lifeline. <\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Siegel informs Susannah\u2019s mom that Susannah\u2019s spinal tap shows an elevated number of white blood cells. This is usually a sign of infection or inflammation and indicates that Susannah\u2019s illness is physiological rather than emotional in nature. The news finally gives Susannah\u2019s mom a clue she can wrap her head around. She spends the rest of the evening Googling medical terms like \u201cmeningitis\u201d and \u201cmultiple sclerosis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The brainstem is one of the oldest and most primitive parts of the brain. It controls life-or-death functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Diagnosing which part of the brain is responsible for a certain behavior is difficult, as one behavior may be controlled by many different <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-are-the-regions-of-the-brain\/\">areas of the brain<\/a>. If one area goes out, many connections are altered.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Susannah\u2019s bloodwork and autoimmune tests come back negative. Her MRIs and CT scans are clean. Forced by this evidence to rule out most of the diagnoses they had in mind, <strong>Susannah\u2019s doctors begin to wonder whether they\u2019ll actually be able to figure out what\u2019s wrong with her.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Changes to the Medical Team<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Siegel, the physician on whom Susannah\u2019s mom has pinned her hopes, quits Susannah\u2019s team. Susannah\u2019s mom is devastated. She now believes that Dr. Russo is their only hope\u2014until Russo brings up the name of a Dr. Souhel Najjar, the doctor to call when nothing makes sense. Both Russo and Najjar order a second spinal tap for Susannah. Unbeknownst to Susannah\u2019s family, Siegel asked Najjar to join Susannah\u2019s team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who was Dr. Siegel, the neurologist who couldn&#8217;t diagnose Susannah? How did he try to help? Dr. Siegel is a neurologist that joined Susannah&#8217;s medical team and reassured her mother. He suspected brain inflammation and pulled Dr. Souhel Najjar into the case. Read more about Dr. Siegel, neurologist, and his contributions in Brain on Fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,33],"tags":[130],"class_list":["post-15113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-people","tag-brain-on-fire","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dr. Siegel: Neurologist Was Stumped by Susannah - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Siegel, Neurologist, suspected inflammation but was unable to diagnose Susannah Cahalan. 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