Depersonalization!
One teenage girl started experiencing “out of body” events. On some occasions, she would feel that her body did not belong to her. The very first time she experienced it, she was with her mother and suddenly started asking her mother if it was her sitting there. The mother thought that she is joking so she ignored it. Another time, she experienced a similar event and started taking a selfie with her phone to make sure she is sitting there. When she began experiencing a few more episodes, the mother decided to seek medical help. The mother took the girl to a psychiatrist who evaluated her and told her that there was nothing wrong with her. But she continued having episodes. Then, the mother decided to go to a neurologist, and she came to me. After hearing her story, I decided to run a test on her called prolonged EEG (electroencephalogram, which is a study of brain waves). Sure enough, it showed that her episodes were Temporal lobe seizures, which begin in the part of the brain known as temporal lobes, which processes emotions. A person feels that his or her body does not belong to them, which is known as depersonalization. She responded very well to medicine, and her seizures resolved completely!
Wrong Baby!
One day during my residency training in pediatrics, I was working in the newborn nursery. That morning, our whole team was sitting and having breakfast. I was on night duty, and that morning, I was supposed to collect blood from many newborn babies to check for any infections. After finishing my work, I went to the team and said, “I did blood work on the wrong baby.” Initially, there was pin-drop silence and everyone looked shocked. I was quietly enjoying their reactions and was trying to suppress my laugh. Then I silently told them that the wrong baby was due for blood work. They all had very confused looks on their faces. I explained that baby’s last name is spelled “RONG” and so I did blood work on Rong baby and everyone started laughing! BTW, RONG is the Chinese last name.
Origami!
During my residency interviews, I encountered one interesting program director. Program directors run the residency training programs, interview candidates and select them for the residency positions. When I went for the interview, instead of asking typical questions, he asked me to talk on “any” subject for 10 minutes. It was very unexpected. I was puzzled. I kept on thinking about the topic to talk for the next 10 minutes. Suddenly, the colored papers on his desk caught my attention, and I got an idea. I picked up one colored paper and started folding it and made an origami ball. While folding the paper, I started talking about Origami. Origami is the art of paper folding; it is associated with Japanese culture; ori means to fold, and kami means paper (kami became gami afterward). I kept on talking for the next 10 minutes and made an airplane and a boat. I guess he never expected that any candidate would talk about Origami. His face said it all!
Chinese food!
A patient of mine was an eight-year-old boy with migraines who came to me for the second opinion. He tried many medications, but no luck. He kept on experiencing multiple migraines a week and was missing school. After evaluation, I explained everything and asked him to keep a headache diary, which includes what he eats before having migraines. I also started him on migraine medication. After two months, when he came back with the headache diary, I noticed that whenever he eats Chinese food, he gets migraines. MSG in Chinese food was his migraine trigger. After he stopped consuming foods containing MSG, he became headache-free. His parents were delighted with the outcome. Some foods can be a trigger for migraine headaches in some people. Just by keeping a simple headache diary, we were able to fix his migraines!
These are such fascinating stories! I had a laugh at the “rong” baby story 😂.
All the stories are very informative.
Very nice writeup savi..
Food related migraine..cough syrup induced headache is so informative and helpful to the society.. Alice in Wonderland syndrome is something new to know
Thank you, dear Shaila😊
Dr Bandari you are amazing. Thank you for educating all of us. ” Brain on fire ” I had no clue that it was a real story. Too many disease with unknown cure yet but if there was your type of determination in everyone I know that many people lives could live a normal life in spite of anything.
Thank you ❤️
Dear Josephine, thank you so much for nice words! Love you.🤩
सावि खूप छान अनुभव आहेत तूझे.आणि तूझं लिखाण अप्रतिम. सामान्य माणसाच्या डोळ्यासमोर सुध्दा जसेच्या तसे चित्र उभे राहते.
You are too much brilliant…
Nice.keep it up..
That is very sweet of you, dear. Thank you.
Great stories Dr. Bandari. Rong baby, Lol!!
🙂 Thank you.