A Kent man’s disturbing night terrors were the first sign he was suffering from a rare and fatal brain disease which left him seriously ill in intensive care.
Ben Tarver, 29, from Folkestone, woke up in the middle of the night on September 11 and told his partner he had experienced something worse than a nightmare.
The hellish dream featured a burning house, in which Mr. Tarver was “trapped” and left him terrified of going to sleep.
This marked the beginning of a cascade of alarming symptoms, including panic attacks, headaches, hallucinations and seizures.
However, after visiting the emergency room twice, doctors sent him home when scans looked completely normal.
Doctors only took his condition seriously months later, when a catastrophic seizure landed him in intensive care.
He was eventually diagnosed with a rare disease called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, which occurs when harmful antibodies attack the brain.
However, doctors are currently unclear about the underlying cause of this, which is usually a brain tumor.
Ben Tarver, 29, from Folkestone, Kent, (pictured) woke up in the middle of the night after experiencing something worse than a nightmare.
He began experiencing panic attacks, headaches, hallucinations and even seizures over the next few weeks, but doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him when he went to A&E.
Tarver is currently unable to communicate and is bedridden at King’s College Hospital in London, and it is unclear how long he will remain there.
Speaking about when the ordeal began, his partner Liam Nougher, 26, said: “Ben didn’t suffer any anxiety or seizures, but on September 11 he woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare.
“But he explained that it wasn’t just a nightmare and he felt like he was inside the dream.”
When he remembered the dream, he said he had been in a house fire and it “seemed like reality.”
Nougher added: “After that, I was afraid to go back to sleep in case I came back to this strange reality.”
Mr. Tarver then began experiencing headaches and panic attacks and went to the emergency room, where he had a CT scan and nothing abnormal was found.
But a few days later, his panic attacks became more frequent, reaching around 12 a day.
And then came a terrifying attack.
His partner Liam Nougher, 26, (pictured) called 999 when Tarver experienced his first seizure.
Mr Tarver was rushed to William Harvey Hospital by ambulance when he suffered his third seizure.
“He looked at me, started talking nonsense and then his body froze, he fell to the ground and started spasming and foaming,” Mr Nougher recalls.
Nougher dialed 999 and was told to start CPR because Tarver was not breathing properly.
Paramedics soon arrived and Mr Tarver was taken to hospital where further scans were carried out, but still nothing worrying showed up.
Doctors told her not to return to the emergency room if there were more episodes and advised her to contact her primary care doctor after each seizure.
They also told him that paramedics could stabilize him if he had other episodes.
Over the next two days, Tarver began having auditory and visual hallucinations and suffered another seizure.
On the third day, Mr. Tarver woke up in the middle of the night having a panic attack: he was screaming and talking “gibberish.”
That night he suffered a third violent attack.
Doctors experimented with different medications to help control Mr. Tarver’s symptoms. After three days without seizures, he was discharged, but that night he had another “really serious episode.”
Mr Tarver was transferred to Kent and Canterbury Hospital, where he was eventually diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis on October 15. He was later transferred to the Intensive Care Unit of King’s College Hospital in London, where he has remained since
Nougher called 99 again and Tarver was rushed to William Harvey Hospital by ambulance.
His heart rate was more than 200 beats per minute, well above the normal resting heart rate of 60 to 100.
Doctors desperately tried to stabilize him and had to perform cardioversion, a procedure used to stabilize an abnormal heart rhythm.
He then had to remain in hospital, where psychiatry, cardiology and neurology teams spent time investigating his baffling case.
Mr Nougher said: ‘During the nine days he was in the hospital, Ben became extremely paranoid and tried to run away and attack people.
“His symptoms got so bad that he didn’t seem like himself at all.”
Mr Nougher had to stay by Mr Tarver’s bed at all hours of the day and night in case he tried to escape.
He said: “Ben was planning escape attempts and sometimes ran away, until he was restrained.”
Nougher has been visiting his partner in hospital every day, but the journey from Kent is proving expensive.
Doctors experimented with different medications to help control Mr. Tarver’s symptoms.
After three days without a seizure, he was discharged, but that night he had another “really bad episode.”
Mr Tarver was transferred to Kent and Canterbury Hospital, where he was eventually diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis on October 15.
He was later transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at King’s College Hospital in London, where he has remained since.
Mr Nougher has been visiting his partner in hospital every day but the journey from Kent is proving expensive.
TO GoFundMe The site has been created to help you with travel and accommodation costs while traveling back and forth.
Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is an autoimmune neurological disease that causes inflammation of the brain.
The body creates antibodies that fight NMDA receptors in the brain, disrupting normal brain signaling and causing brain inflammation or “encephalitis.”
According to the NHS, an altered mental state, behavioral changes, seizures or seizures, hallucinations and sleep disturbances are symptoms of this potentially life-threatening autoimmune disorder.
The disease, which affects approximately one in 1.5 million people a year, is usually caused by tumors.
However, doctors have not been able to find any tumor in Mr. Tarver’s body.
Mr. Nougher claims ownership of Mr. Tarver. The immune system is very strong and is playing against you.
“If he had a weaker one, he probably would have recovered, since his body would have stopped producing antibodies,” he said.