Hello,
I am new member on this site and am the mother 6 yr old Danielle, who has many learning disabilities and ADD. I think she is also affected by PANDAS and am looking for advice from others about how to treat it and also on interpreting the lab results.
First our story. I've suspected since Danielle was around 2 or 3 yrs that she carries strep (& probably other viruses too). She's never actually had strep but I have had it several times in the years where Danielle was 3 to 5. I couldn't figure out where I was getting it & finally saw that I was getting it from her! I used to finish her food sometimes or share a utensil & whenever I did I would get a very serious sore throat/cold that turned to strep a few times.
Danielle has never had tics, but has had OCD behaviour from about 20 months. She used to have a serious obsession with bags, handbags, gymbags or even just plastic shopping bags. She'd put the straps of several bags around her neck, then take them off, then put them on, etc. She'd also put her stuff into all kinds of different bags & insisted on carrying all her "stuff" with her where ever we went. Carrying her stuff with her was a very big deal until the age of 5 almost. She also used to repeat things - I remember once we were walking home from the park & she wanted her snack which I didn't have with me. She cried, screamed & sobbed "I want my snack" over 250 times (I remember cause I counted in order not to lose it) in the 30 minute walk home.
She still has some OCD behaviour but it often coincides with her going off into her own little world. She has an obsession with picking leaves off trees & flowers from the garden. We've told her 100s of times not to do it but she can't control herself. I'm wondering if her bouts of going off into her own little imaginary world are also be OC. It is so bad these days. She goes off into her imaginary land a lot when she's at home, often at the dinner table. While we're trying to converse as a family, she'll be talking to herself, singing or barking - doing her own little imaginary world thing. When my husband brings her to the pool, she simply cannot stay "with him". She becomes Ariel the mermaid, DH becomes "father" her brother becomes some other finned-character and others in the pool mostly get in the way of her fantasy. I've been trying to address this with dietary restrictions & supplements (thinking it was linked to leaky gut) but something triggers her dreaminess, and it's more than just food. She is OK at school or when she's focused on a task but outside of tasks, she often goes off into fantasyland.
Danielle has a nearly perfect illness record with only 3 illnesses that I can remember: an ear infection, conjunctivitis and fever all of which happened about the same time during her 3rd year. She was treated with antibiotics and since then, there have been no illnesses at all, not even a common cold, which makes me think that she's one of these "viral" kids, for whom viruses go to their brains or otherwise affect them neurologically.
She's always had *extreme* anxiety and she handles changes poorly. Her nature is extremely sweet & gentle child, very sensitive & loving, but she has frequent bouts of explosiveness & anger which are triggered by little incidents. She has other issues as well, but I think the ones I've listed are mostly associated with PANDAS.
Now for the labwork. In June 2007 she got impetigo on her head. In Sept 2007, her ASLO was elevated: 348 (lab range: <200) possibly due to her impetigo (treated topically with an antibiotic cream).
In Jan 2008 after 3 months of homeopathy, her ALSO was at 275 and both the DAN doctor and lab director (Nataf in France) think that the value is too low to be a problem. But I insisted on further tests.
In Feb 2008, we got the following results (in French since done through Philippe Auguste in France):
ASLO : 260 UI/ml (range < 200)
antistreptodornases B: 960 (range <240)
antstreptokinases: 180 UI (range < 80)
Her ASLO is coming down but the other values are well above the range.
So now what? Do I conclude that she has it? If so, what do I do about it? What natural remedies have worked for others?
The DAN has prescribed another homeopathic treatment claiming it's effective but we're not done yet so time will tell.
Any help here is really appreciated. She's got a lot of other issues going on and I'm exhausted with all this research so leads into this would really lighten my load.
Thanks in advance,
Monique
