Young boy experiences Alice in Wonderland syndrome during bout with flu, Here’s what we know about the rare syndrome

When a 9-year-old boy contracted the flu and was getting tucked in at night, he told his mom she had looked as if she’d shrunk.

He described this as happening out of nowhere, where the bedroom would seem to shrink.

Confused, his mother told herself since he had a fever, that was causing his weird perception. But the next day, the same thing happened again, but with a much lower temperature reading.

However, the visual distortions became more frequent the higher the fever.

When he tested positive for the flu, she wondered if it had affected his brain. She began conducting her research and came across what was called Alice in Wonderland syndrome.

AIWS is a neurological condition where the brain’s ability to process sensory input is disrupted, where it alters a person’s visual perception and can even distort their sense of reality, according to Parents.

The good news – it is temporary and it’s not harmful on its own.

Though it isn’t harmful, its considered rare. But this could be because research is limited, and many cases go unreported or are misunderstood.

Experts have even said its normally written off as a vision problem or even a hallucination, though neither are the cause.

Anjan Chatterjee, MD, a cognitive neurologist and founding director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, instead described the condition as a “sensory distortion.” He also shared that it often presents as either micropsia, where objects appear smaller than they are, or macropsia, where objects seem larger than they are.

Meanwhile, MaryAnn Mays, MD, a neurologist specializing in headache medicine at the Cleveland Clinic shared that some reports indicate AIWS can be the cause of other distortions, including objects in a room that appear flat or the room itself feeling tilted.

Some have even reported experiencing a sense of time distortion, where time would either speed up or slow down.

“There can also be a sense of depersonalization during an episode, where a person might feel like they are looking down at themselves as though they are detached from their body,” Dr. Mays continued.

And when it comes to if adults can experience this bizarre condition just as much as children, Dr. Chatterjee notes that adults can definitely experience it.

In fact, Dr. Mays shared with the publication that adults can encounter AIWS just as frequently but might feel reluctant sharing this with others.

When it comes to what might trigger such a scary experience AIWS causes, possible causes include migranes, epilepsy, viral infections, medication side effects, or the result of a brain tumor.

In terms of treatment, be sure to note that there is none.

“Parents should know there is no treatment for AIWS other than to treat what is causing it in the first place,” Dr. Chatterjee said to Parents.

This could mean treating a seizure, a migrane, or letting a flu run its course.

“If AIWS is being caused by a migraine, parents should know that many migraine medicines we have available do appear to be helpful in preventing these visual processing disturbances,” Dr. Mays went on to note.