This is probably way too simple, but....

[Kayanne]

If your child does well off antibiotics......I would think that would mean there is no underlying infection.? Some kids need to stay on antibiotics to reduce symptoms....if they go off..symptoms come back. I would think that indicates an existing, persistent infection, or, someone in the house who is exposing . (Worried Dad's case????)

 

For those who do well off of antibiotics, and use them strictly for prophylactic measures for strep (PANDAS).....wouldn't that be an indicator of no underlying infection???

That is what I believe is happening in my daughter's case.

 

Although, we have had colds in the house, and for about a week, there has been a little bit of OCD...not yet to be disruptive to her life. We are trying Motrin for a few days.

[airial95]

Based on the way things were explained to me by our pediatrician, I always thought that some how the abx helped the immune system as well. It's the antibodies that are wreaking havoc, not the bacteria. So even after the infection iteslf is gone, the antibodies may still be identifying whatever it is in the basal ganglia that they find offensive as an active strep infection. The long term abx helps keep from reinfection yes - but in some kids (like my son) if you take them off, the immune system ramps back up assuming the BG is actually strep again - even without an active infection. Something about the abx tells the body that it can back off it's attack. I'm not a doctor - so I don't know what or how, but that basic explination always made some sense to me.

 

I too would like to see a poll as to the relationship between time of onset and treatment to how long treatment was needed. We had about 7-8 months from our time of onset until we got treatment (we thought it was the "terrible twos" for quite a while!!) And now we've been on abx for 10 months. We tried taking him off 2x with disasterous results. And like others here, our initial improvement on the abx was amazing - almost 50%, but getting that last 50% has been a long slow climb. We lowered his dose of abx, but he got strep 2x on that dose, so now we've swtiched abx and are back at full dose...we'll see how that goes. But all in all, we're at about 85% now and realize we're running a marathon!