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Some patients arrive at a neurologist’s office having been told by multiple prior providers that their episodes are “not real” or that nothing is neurologically wrong. In most cases, the truth is more nuanced and more treatable: psychogenic nonepileptic seizures are genuine neurological events that look like epilepsy, feel like epilepsy, and are frightening in…

Every summer, someone collapses at a backyard barbecue or a parking lot, and the people around them freeze, not from fear, but from genuine uncertainty. Is it the heat? Is it a stroke? It looks the same in the first seconds, and those seconds matter more than most people realize. Understanding heat stroke vs stroke…

When weakness starts in the feet and gradually spreads upward over days, the clinical picture is often unmistakable to a neurologist even before specialized testing is complete. Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a serious autoimmune condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the peripheral nervous system, producing muscle weakness that can progress from mild leg heaviness…

Your arm goes limp after a collision. The shoulder burns like electricity, and your hand won’t respond the way it should. These aren’t muscle problems; they can signal a brachial plexus injury, a form of nerve damage that’s frequently underestimated and sometimes missed entirely in initial trauma evaluations. The brachial plexus is a network of…

Most people over 50 have some degree of cervical spondylosis visible on imaging, even when they’ve never had a significant neck complaint, which makes it one of the most quietly prevalent conditions in adult medicine. It develops through the gradual breakdown of discs, joints, and ligaments in the cervical region, and, for a long time,…

There is a frustrating pattern that plays out for many patients with small fiber neuropathy: burning pain in the feet, strange sensations in the hands, disrupted sleep, and after a complete neurological workup, including an EMG, every result comes back normal. For a long time, that was where the story ended. The condition went unlabeled,…

Neurologists describe cluster headaches as one of the most severe pain conditions in all of medicine, and patients who have experienced them rarely need convincing. The attacks arrive abruptly, reach peak intensity within minutes, and produce a level of pain that has earned the condition the informal label “suicide headache.” What defines the condition beyond…

One morning, you wake up with unusual back pain. By afternoon, your legs feel heavy. By evening, you can’t urinate normally, and a band of numbness is spreading up your torso. This is not a pulled muscle or a pinched nerve. This is a neurological emergency – and for patients with transverse myelitis, this compressed…

Most pain follows a predictable arc: injury happens, healing occurs, pain subsides. Complex regional pain syndrome breaks that arc entirely. The injury heals, or at least appears to, but the pain doesn’t leave. It intensifies and spreads. A wrist fracture from months ago now produces burning so severe that a shirt sleeve touching the skin…

Imagine being at a work meeting and suddenly bursting into tears, not because you’re sad, but because your brain has lost the ability to regulate the physical expression of emotion. Or laughing uncontrollably at a funeral, fully aware that the reaction doesn’t match what you actually feel inside. For people with pseudobulbar affect, this is…