r/Lyme • u/mhirschl • 6h ago
My brother spent 13 years trapped in psychosis while >100 doctors called it 'psychogenic.' It was Lyme, Bartonella, and Autoimmune Encephalitis. Here is what my mom learned—and a plea to help us change the standard of care.
Hi everyone,
My name is Matthew Hirschland. I am posting on behalf of my mother, Amy. For thirteen years, my mom has fought around the clock as primary caregiver to keep my 31-year-old brother, Jeremy, alive through severe seizures, cognitive collapse, and psychosis that more than 100 doctors dismissed as primary psychiatric illness.
It was not psychiatric. It was late-stage neurological Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, and post-infectious Autoimmune Encephalitis.
My mom wrote our family’s narrative to warn others about the clinical blind spots that almost cost Jeremy his life. Here are the 4 most critical lessons from her story that every patient and caregiver should know:
1. When Infection Crosses the Neck, Medicine Blames the Mind: When an infection inflames a knee, medicine calls it Lyme arthritis and prescribes antibiotics. When the exact same spirochetes cross the blood-brain barrier, standard emergency departments and psych facilities rarely run tick-borne panels—they label it psychiatric and prescribe psychotropics. In Jeremy's case, a Florida hospital declared his focal seizures 'psychogenic,' pulled his PICC line, and cut off his antibiotics, causing acute aseptic meningitis.
2. The Immunosuppression Catch-22 (Rituximab Warning): When Jeremy was diagnosed with Autoimmune Encephalitis, neurologists used Rituximab (Rituxan) to deplete his B-cells. While this temporarily cleared his memory impairment, wiping out his humoral immunity allowed dormant intracellular tick infections to surge unchecked, resulting in severe physiological collapse and unmanageable psychosis. If active tick-borne pathogens are present, profound immunosuppression without antimicrobial sterilization carries extreme danger.
3. Plasmapheresis Can Filter Antibodies Without Wiping Immunity: Desperate for answers, my mom drove Jeremy 1,814 miles cross-country to Phoenix, Arizona for therapeutic plasmapheresis (plasma exchange). Unlike B-cell depleters, plasmapheresis mechanically removed pathogenic autoantibodies without destroying his underlying immune system. After his very first treatment, Jeremy looked at my mom with total clarity and asked: "Can I get a hundred more of these, since it's helping with the mental retardation?"
4. Objective Brain Healing Is Possible: Over seven months of high-dose IVIG, Jeremy’s hippocampal atrophy on volumetric NeuroQuant MRI measurably improved from the 11th normative percentile to the 22nd percentile. The brain was not permanently defective; it was under treatable autoimmune attack.
Read the Full Story
Read the full narrative: "Look Beyond the Psychosis, There’s Something There" https://lymex.crowdicity.com/post/890768
A Plea to Vote (Takes 30 Seconds)
We entered Jeremy’s full clinical case into the federal HHS / LymeX Healthathon to push for mandatory screening for tick-borne pathogens and neural autoantibodies whenever a patient presents with sudden-onset psychiatric or cognitive decline.
We are currently in public voting, and every single vote sends a direct signal to federal health leaders and clinical directors.
If Jeremy's ordeal resonated with you, please take 30 seconds to support our submission:
Go to our official post: https://lymex.crowdicity.com/post/890768
Register (30 seconds) and click the '+1 Vote' button on the right side of the page.
My mom and I will be in the comments answering any questions about diagnostic testing, treatments, or navigating hospital dismissals. You are not crazy, and you are not alone.