Also known as: Sleeping sickness
The central case of the episode. A woman presents with hypersomnia (18+ hours of sleep per day), irritability, fever, and personality changes. She develops seizures, hallucinations (formication - feeling bugs crawling on her skin), and eventually falls into a coma. The diagnostic challenge centers on how she contracted African sleeping sickness despite never traveling to Africa, ultimately revealed to be sexually transmitted from an extramarital affair.
A preschool teacher presents with shortness of breath and chest tightness. House discovers her husband has been secretly putting his blood pressure medication in her food to decrease her sex drive (to match his own medication-induced decreased libido), causing her cardiac symptoms.