A 16 -year -old American boy succeeded in defeating the brain -eating Amo

• Sebastian Deleon had to re -study basic skills during the disease as the amoeba severely damaged his brain

• The boy almost – uniquely – survived the infection caused by Naegleria Fowleri amoeba

• Accurate diagnosis and quick treatment played a role in its recovery including the use of an experimental agent

– It was tough. I had to learn how to walk, how to write, how to do all the basic things, ”recalled Sebastian Deleon, an American young man, to the period he experienced after the brain -eating Amo attacked his body. Deleon is one of a handful of patients who have survived the infection. The now 24 -year -old man Interview with the Florida News 6 channels In 2022 about its infection, its illness and the nearly six-year healing process. We quote from this interview.

The recovery of Deleon is a real medical miracle, as the meeting with the Naegleria Fowleri parasite is not very common, but the then 16 -year -old boy did. However, Amoba did a huge destruction in his brain, so he had to learn a lot of things again.

Everything began in 2016: Deleon remembered the first moments of his comma run by spending his holiday with his family in Orlando in Florida when he began to feel an unbearable headache.

This headache was different from the rest. Felt like a smooth stone on the top of my head and somebody would push it

He told me how he described the pain in the hospital. These were the initial symptoms of the deadly brain vessel infection. « I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t move, and stuff like that, » Deleon recalled. « My parents said then, » Okay, there is something wrong with this boy. We have to take it somewhere, « he said. So they sat in the car. By this time, Sebastian felt as if he were sitting on a roller coaster running around, and the world was rotating with him. He couldn’t even bear the sunlight, he had to put sunglasses to stand the way at all.

By the time they arrived at the hospital, the boy had already shown the symptoms of encephalitis. He was so painful that he could not bear the touch of the doctors examining him. In the hospital dr. He came before Humberto Liriano, who, fortunately, recognized the symptoms of primary amoebas meningoencephalitis (PAM) within a short period of time: this is caused by infection with Naegleria Fowler in the human body. This type of disease is the most common in Florida and Texas, so those working in the intensive care unit were aware of the high mortality rate of the PAM. Doctor Liriano, a hospital in Orlando, knew immediately as he was facing and suspected what was coming.

I had to say to the family: say goodbye to Sebastian

Liriano told reporters in 2016.

The time factor In the case of brain -eating amoebas infections It is key: the sooner they can start treatment, the greater the chance of survival. Fortunately, Doctor Liriano was in the picture, performed the necessary tests, and on the day of transport to the hospital, it turned out what attacked the boy’s organization.

To fight the infection, doctors placed Deleon in a 72 -hour artificial coma and began to cool his body to slow down the growth and destructive work of the warm environment in the brain. Meanwhile, they started to defeat the parasite … But the clock was ticking as they fought.

They tried to save the boy with experimental treatment. – The whole hospital worked together to hear Deleon’s test results – – said Liriano to CBS. The Profound Inc. -based pharmaceutical company, which produces an anti -parasite agent Miltfozin (sold as Impavido), was called on, which was approved by the pharmaceutical authority in March this year, not to treat this infection, but also another parasitic infection in the subtrophic area. It is shocking, but true: the medicine was transported to the hospital within 12 minutes of the call.

« We were optimistic at the beginning, because we knew this was the first time a patient had received the medicine in a state of consciousness, » said Todd McLaughlan, CEO of the pharmaceutical company at that time. (The active ingredient is also available in Europe, the Americans were brought in the production and distribution from Germany in 2016.) MC Laughan said at the time: The most important thing is the proper diagnosis and the second is speed to get the infected patient as quickly as possible. As it turned out, he was right: the speed proved to be key to Deleon. It is because the infection causes, among other things, inflammation and thus brain swelling, which has prevented the latter, the dangerous swelling of the brain. In the kitchen language, when the pressure in the skull increases, the bones surrounding the brain are not protected, but on the contrary, they damage the brain as the increasing pressure destroys the tissues.

Deleon in the coma received the drug and samples from the spine of the spine were sent daily for examination, which soon came back with a negative result: the treatment was successful, the parasite disappeared from the boy’s body. So they won, but the real battle only started after that: the boy had to be brought back to life and saved everything that could be saved. Total rehabilitation took nearly six years, and Sebastian feels pretty much as before the infection.

About how the killer parasite could get into his body, Deleon said he had caught Amőba after swimming in the lake near his home. « It was a smaller pond, but we called it a lake, I bathed in it, » recalled the college student, who had never heard of the risk of swimming in freshwater. – I think I bathed twice or three times. I probably caught it … I jumped in and didn’t get my nose off, just exploded into the water, he said. During the interview, a young man studying a criminal truth expert at the University of Florida said he had told his story because he wanted to draw attention to this danger that we know so far.

After Deleon’s healing, the doctors who treated him also recalled the story in tears. The boy’s mother said:

God has done a miracle through this medical team and this hospital to get our son back!