I mistook my mum for Boris Johnson and feared nurses were trying to kill me after Covid ‘triggered brain swelling’
WHEN Chantelle Christain didn’t recognise her own parents, started scaling hospital walls and believed nurses were chasing her with knives, doctors thought she was mentally ill.
In fact, her psychological symptoms were a sign that a deadly virus was attacking her brain.
The healthy and career-driven 24-year-old was working as a strategist at a Fintech company when she began to experience “erratic and irrational thoughts”.
“I didn't sleep much but somehow had lots of energy," she tells Sun Health.
"My brain and thoughts felt very fast; I started talking quickly and was fascinated by everything."
It was March 2020, and Chantelle had recently moved from her flat in London to her parent's home in Glasgow, just as the UK entered its first Covid lockdown.
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Over a matter of days, Chantelle’s personality and behaviour changed drastically.
“I became very confident and charismatic, which initially meant I was doing really well at work,” she explained.
But it was her boss who first raised concerns when he noticed Chantelle’s newfound zest for life meant she was sending emails to clients in the middle of the night.
Soon after this, Chantelle started to hallucinate and showed signs of psychosis.
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“I thought my mum was Boris Johnson,” she says. “Her wispy blonde hair made me think I was in the house of the prime minister.”
Chantelle says her mental state continued to get progressively worse until the situation was “completely out of control”.
She started talking in “gibberish” and laughing uncontrollably at seemingly random things.
“At one point, I was just texting my friends with strings of letters,” she recalls.
In a moment of clarity, Chantelle tried spraying perfume in her eyes to "wake up" from her "dream-like" state.
I'd tell them the nurses were coming at me with knives
Chantelle Christain
Concerned, her parents, Simon and Carole, decided to call NHS 111 on April 1 when they realised their daughter was in a “complete frenzy” they couldn’t pull her out of.
The ambulance staff who arrived at the family home initially thought Chantelle was experiencing a drug overdose and rushed her to A&E.
While being examined by doctors, the now-28-year-old remembers speaking in several different languages and “climbing the walls” in an attempt to “prove” she was "okay".
After deciding Chantelle was in a psychotic state, she was referred to a psychiatric hospital in Paisley, where she was monitored for three days.
While on her way to the ward, Chantelle fell even more unwell and was suddenly unable to recognise her parents - or even her own reflection.
"I remember thinking I might be my granny. I then asked the nurses if I was a man or woman," she said.
Chantelle's delusions then sunk into a dark paranoia.
She was convinced nurses trying to help her had, in fact, kidnapped her and were trying to kill her.
"I'd be on the phone with my parents, and I'd suddenly become very distressed and tell them nurses were coming at me with knives," she explains.
"It was terrifying, and I thought my life was in danger."
If treatment is delayed for days because of a misdiagnosis, then patients may suffer avoidable brain damage and may even die
Professor Tom Solomon,
Chantelle would also get very aggressive with some of the nurses, which she says was "totally out of character".
Thankfully, a psychiatrist quickly recognised her symptoms as viral encephalitis - inflammation of the brain.
Blood tests, a lumbar puncture - which involves inserting a needle into the spinal cord - and an MRI scan would later confirm his diagnosis.
According to Professor Tom Solomon, a neurologist at the University of Liverpool and director of the Pandemic Institute, having physical symptoms mistaken for a mental illness is not uncommon.
“Encephalitis can sometimes cause strange behaviour, delusions, and hallucinations, which also occur in psychosis," he said.
“Doctors can usually distinguish them, but occasionally a patient with encephalitis is misdiagnosed as having psychosis."
In Chantelle’s case, it only took doctors a few days to recognise the condition, which Professor Tom said could have saved her life.
"If treatment is delayed for days because of a misdiagnosis, then patients may suffer avoidable brain damage and may even die," he added.
"Encephalitis can also sometimes cause memory problems similar to dementia.
"Again, misdiagnosis is possible if clinicians are not on guard."
Doctors don't recognise symptoms
There are up to 6,000 cases in the UK each year and potentially hundreds of thousands worldwide, according to .
This means it is more common than bacterial meningitis, which is far better known.
Yet, new research by the charity suggests over two-thirds of Brits have never heard of it.
Even more concerning, 54 per cent of A&E doctors and nurses in the UK say they wouldn't recognise the condition.
Depending on the type, the mortality rate can be up to 40 per cent, even with treatment.
Chantelle was moved to a neurology ward in Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and treated with anxiety medications, haloperidol and lorazepam, for six weeks to help keep her calm and give her brain a chance to recover.
Encephalitis is inflammation of the brain.
It can be triggered by any viral infection, such as chickenpox or cold sores, when the body's immune system mistakenly attacks brain tissue or bacterial and fungal infections.
In rarer cases, it can be caused by the body spontaneously attacking the brain.
Doctors believe Chantelle developed the condition after catching Covid a few weeks before her encephalitis symptoms began.
She had suffered from a sensitivity to bright light and headaches - both of which are considered symptoms of the disease.
However, no test was undertaken when she was first admitted to the hospital, so doctors cannot be sure that coronavirus was the cause.
Fears encephalitis had returned
Four years on, Chantelle is on the road to recovery, but it is not without setbacks.
In 2021, while on a hiking trip with friends on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, Chantelle started to experience what she thought was encephalitis again.
She says: "I was suddenly unable to hold a conversation and quickly jumped between laughing and crying.
"I was unable to read or focus on anything."
At the time, Chantelle had been bitten by several ticks, which can, in some cases, cause encephalitis.
When she returned home, she was seen by a neurologist who diagnosed her with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), which she claims was triggered by the fear of her encephalitis coming back.
Chantelle compared her FND to a case of severe anxiety. It happens when the brain struggles to receive and send information to the rest of the body.
Although tests showed she was perfectly healthy, FND left her with several cognitive issues - similar to those she had experienced with encephalitis.
"I started suffering from poor attention span, difficulty engaging in conversation, processing information, and making everyday decisions," she says.
"I lost a lot of weight because I couldn't decide what to eat most days."
Long-lasting consequences
In the years that followed, Chantelle continued to battle with bouts of poor mental health and mental fatigue, which she hadn't experienced before her diagnosis.
"This left me with low self-confidence and a general lack of purpose and drive,"; she said.
"I couldn't shift the narrative in my head that the energy, determination and positivity that had so defined me previously was now gone and would never come back."
However, gradually and over time, things have gotten better for Chantelle.
In September, she plans to retrain as a speech and language therapist - who often work with people with brain injuries after suffering from encephalitis or stroke.
Chantelle also volunteers with Encephalitis International as a support worker, where she hosts meetings where sufferers can come together and share their stories.
"I feel more motivated than ever to turn this experience into something positive and help people the same way I was helped by nurses, doctors, friends and family," she said.
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While it's not always possible to prevent encephalitis, the NHS recommends having the MMR (measles, mumps and rueblla) vaccine.
It also advises getting travel-related jabs before going on holiday, such as the Japanese encephalitis vaccine before going to parts of Asia.
Symptoms of encephalitis
ENCEPHALITIS usually starts off with flu-like symptoms, such as a high temperature and headache.
More serious symptoms come on over hours, days or weeks, including:
- Confusion or disorientation
- Seizures or fits
- Changes in personality and behaviour (is the person acting like themselves?)
- Difficulty speaking
- Weakness or loss of movement in some parts of the body
- Loss of consciousness
Dial 999 for an ambulance immediately if you or someone else has these serious symptoms.