10 Symptoms of Encephalitis

It's fairly normal to get a fever once in a while when your body is fighting an infection. If, however, the fever persists, it's a sign that something is wrong. Any fever that lasts more than two days and refuses to die down needs a doctor's attention. Encephalitis is almost impossible to beat instantly because it affects the brain, which is why a persistent fever requires special attention.

Headaches, albeit unpleasant, occur fairly often and aren't cause for alarm. What is alarming, however, is that a prolonged headache can mean something is wrong within. As inflammation in your brain progresses, you will feel more and more pain. If it persists for more than a day or two and won't go away after proper medication and sleep, that headache deserves medical attention. It's always better to be safe than sorry, so visit a doctor to clarify if it's encephalitis or just a false alarm.

Despite the brain being the center of all bodily activity, it doesn't work on its own. Your brain uses your spinal cord to transport signals to all parts of the body. Since the spinal cord passes through our necks, that area is pretty vulnerable. If you feel persistent stiffness in your neck and back without any muscle strain, that may be a sign that a brain condition is affecting the spinal cord too. If you ever feel stiffness for unknown reasons, it's best to consult a specialist because something harmless can have fatal consequences if improperly treated.

Because the brain plays such an important role in governing our bodily functions and processes, you need to keep it in shape. If you don't, your brain invests a lot of energy in battling the ongoing condition, or inflammation in this case. With the brain focused on protecting itself from any harmful infection or problem of another kind, it has no extra energy to continue doing the normal bodily processes, which will leave you feeling fatigued. Observe your body's behavior. If you're too tired for no apparent reason, see a doctor.

Encephalitis also affects sleep quality because sleeping involves the functioning of our brain. You may even sleep for hours in continuation, but you won't be able to reach the deeper phases of sleep. This makes snoozing almost worthless since you will still feel fatigued. That's why you should monitor sleeping habits and try to figure out if there is a reason for your difficulty sleeping. This symptom is always connected to a lack of energy, so keep an eye out for both of these symptoms.

A severe symptom, seizures are always a sign of a complex problem with the brain. If your encephalitis starts causing seizures, go to the hospital immediately. Notify a specialist if you have any of the previous symptoms because seizures are often a sign that the inflammation is advancing and may result in permanent brain damage.

Tremors happen for a lot of reasons, one being a damaged brain nerve connection somewhere within the body. As your brain focuses its energy and resources on tackling encephalitis, it won't have the power to control your body movements. Tremors are a clear sign that your brain is in a state of emergency.

This is one of the more severe symptoms, and it's an indicator that your brain centers are incapable of maintaining a stable level of consciousness and that perception is severely disabled due to disrupted synapses between the neurons in your brain. Again, this symptom indicates advanced encephalitis and requires immediate medical attention. Due to the uniqueness of this condition, it is impossible to pinpoint whether damage is temporary or permanent.

Since the synapses are damaged, some can even become destroyed beyond all repair, which immediately poses a threat to the memory center within your brain. Both short-term and long-term memory may change. This causes an inability to form new memories and effectively have a temporal sense of events. Because of this, feeling disorganized, lost and unable to comprehend time are signs of encephalitis.

Centers governing your temperament, your perception of reality and emotion are first to feel the relentless effects of encephalitis. You may feel a lack of control over your own emotion and have trouble remembering what have you said and done. Ask others around you for help figuring out if you have this symptom. If they see that something is wrong, it's best to play it safe and visit a medical expert.