Brain-Killing Amoeba Takes Life of a Beautiful Newlywed California Woman

By Staff Reporter - 07 Apr '15 13:26PM

A Temecula, California, mother is raising "amoeba awareness" after her newlywed daughter died last October from a brain-killing amoeba called Balamuthia while she was on holiday, according to reports.

Koral Reef, 20, Temulca Valley, is believed to have caught an amoeba called Balamuthia while she was swimming in Arizona's Lake Havasu in May 2013, reports The Mirror.

Sybil Meister began what she's named the "Team Koral Reef Amoeba Awareness" campaign on Facebook after losing her daughter Koral Reef Meister-Pier to amoebic meningoencephalitis, which is a brain infection.

A Facebook page set up in the young woman's memory tells the story: Koral Reef Meister Pier was just 20 years old when she started developing mysterious symptoms in 2013. Described as "bubbly, energetic... healthy and athletic," she had married her high school sweetheart and was planning to attend culinary school. By last summer, she was increasingly troubled by headaches, nausea, neck pain and fatigue. Her vision started to get blurry and she grew increasingly weak.

The pain kept getting worse for Reef. In late September, she went to the emergency room at Temecula Valley Hospital, near her home in Southern California, where an MRI turned up evidence of lesions in her brain. She was transferred to another hospital's intensive care unit for specialized neurological treatment, but her condition took a turn for the worse. By early October she was suffering from numbness, loss of mobility, headaches, rapid heart rate, vomiting and memory loss, and surgeons had to remove a piece of her skull to relieve the pressure on her swollen brain.

Dr. Navaz Karanjia, who treated Koral, said the doctors discovered a big mass in her brain, inflammation and dead tissue, which they eventually determined was being caused by Balamuthia ameba.

According to the report, the parasite Balamuthia is inhaled and often lives in soil and dust, but may also be found in water.

Due to the symptoms, which include headaches, fatigue and a stiff neck, which can be caused by a large number of issues, the infection is hard to diagnose.