title: Acute, severe self-limiting dysautonomia and hypertensive encephalopathy.
abstract: We describe two unrelated children with almost identical clinical illnesses comprising of severe, burning dysesthesia, allodynia, hypertensive encephalopathy, and laboratory evidence of both sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic disturbance after a nonspecific viral illness. No underlying etiology was identified. Both patients displayed complete resolution of their clinical and radiologic findings after a number of months, and there was no recurrence over a follow-up period of 17 months to 4 years. Treatment of the patients' dysesthesias proved difficult, requiring multiple analgesics and intensive physiotherapy. We speculate that their illnesses may represent a pure autonomic variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome.
authors.affiliation: The Roald Dahl EEG Unit, Department of Neurology, Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: S F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Dixon
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Appleton
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.forename: B M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Tedman
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D001342:Autonomic Nervous System Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D002648:Child; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004916:Erythromelalgia / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D020275:Guillain-Barre Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D020343:Hypertensive Encephalopathy / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D010292:Paresthesia / Q000209:etiology; D012640:Seizures / Q000209:etiology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index