Your Theory--Any nurses or docs on here?

[WorriedDADNMOM]

Here is my theory on why the silence from the medical community regarding the Leroy 12 and resistance to Pandas and just the overall "Antibiotics are used too much campaign" you hear about all the time. My dd's ped said strep untreated can "sometimes" cause tics in a very passive manner then later stated after we requested long term penicillin that she would "probably" have a placebo effect from it as if trying to convince us to get off the Pandas train. Then went on to say Pandas is very controversial and says she doesn't subscribe to it. A kind of acknowledgement then retraction???? What are your thoughts????

 

I think this is trying to manage mass "hysteria" or shape the strep policy and "the end justifies the means". Since the introduction of abx the last couple generations, we have not seen Sydenhams Chorea, Scarlet Fever etc.....developed country......BUT the medical community knows about this and really does know Pandas is true, BUT there just aren't enough patients with these issues. With all that we know about SC,SF, RF and other infectious agents, we know they are dangerous. BUT-----There are too many other drugs that are now available to treat symptoms,(anti depressants/anxiety, ssri etc) and with abx resistance, we don't want to open a Pandora's box by acknowledging the whole strep thing.

 

 

If the acknowledgment of Strep causes these issues of mental disease in kids, think of the implications. People will clamor for abx first. Will upend the drug makers and the list goes on. Maybe I am naive or way off base. I am curious as to WHY the skepticism....... Your theories please!!!!!

[SSS]

This sounds very plausible to me, and would not surprise me one bit.

 

At times, trying to get antibiotics from a Dr. is like asking for crack.

 

(Not a Dr. or Nurse, but often play one at home.)

[911RN]

Here is my theory on why the silence from the medical community regarding the Leroy 12 and resistance to Pandas and just the overall "Antibiotics are used too much campaign" you hear about all the time. My dd's ped said strep untreated can "sometimes" cause tics in a very passive manner then later stated after we requested long term penicillin that she would "probably" have a placebo effect from it as if trying to convince us to get off the Pandas train. Then went on to say Pandas is very controversial and says she doesn't subscribe to it. A kind of acknowledgement then retraction???? What are your thoughts????

 

I think this is trying to manage mass "hysteria" or shape the strep policy and "the end justifies the means". Since the introduction of abx the last couple generations, we have not seen Sydenhams Chorea, Scarlet Fever etc.....developed country......BUT the medical community knows about this and really does know Pandas is true, BUT there just aren't enough patients with these issues. With all that we know about SC,SF, RF and other infectious agents, we know they are dangerous. BUT-----There are too many other drugs that are now available to treat symptoms,(anti depressants/anxiety, ssri etc) and with abx resistance, we don't want to open a Pandora's box by acknowledging the whole strep thing.

 

 

If the acknowledgment of Strep causes these issues of mental disease in kids, think of the implications. People will clamor for abx first. Will upend the drug makers and the list goes on. Maybe I am naive or way off base. I am curious as to WHY the skepticism....... Your theories please!!!!!

 

I have been a RN for 24 years. You are on the right track in my view. Antibiotic resistance IS a serious concern and I don't minimize the implications to the general health of USA. We see at least 1-3 cases of MRSA per day in a community of 30,000 people! Which is the result of drug resistant Staph Aureus. This has been in the last 10 years. I had NEVER seen a MRSA abscess 15 years ago in medicine in hospitals, Nursing home or Home Heath. This is a NEW condition/phenomena as a result of poorly used and wrongly used antibiotics. It is now a common, every day, community acquired infection just like Strep or Pneumonia. All that being said, it only takes seeing one patient with Rheumatic Fever to make you realize what not getting an antibiotic can do.

 

I'm not completely convinced it is all antibiotic related because the jury is still out if long term antibiotics ARE really the end all be all for PANDAS. I think part of it is just acknowledging PANDAS is not so controversial anyway and if the medical establishmet has to say it is real....they have no standards of care how to treat it.

 

One must realize that on several psychiatric fronts- Bipolar, Schizophrenia, OCD there is research that all of these conditions may be medically driven with common roots to viral and/or bacterial causes. Or, autoimmune. This will take the medical community by storm if it comes to pass that all these conditions can be treated with meds other that what has typically been prescribed. Antipsychotics, SSRI's will be replaced by an entire new model of medicine by an Internist/PCP/Peds! Psychiatry will become a lost profession. Internists don't want to deal with "crazy" people- this has the potential to shake medicine at it's core that it has been wrong regarding pscyh conditions for decades.

 

I think this goes much deeper than just antibiotic resistance issues. This is a whole new paradigm for the medical establishment...not just Pandora's Box .... more Pandora's mansion. This would be entire new mindset for medicine. It's too scary and "unreal" for them to even fatham this new paradigm could be the future of medicine. They are woefully unprepared for that potential reality right now. Just think (and I am not saying this is in anyway TRUE) if IVIG became the gold standard for an illness like Bipolar- how would the supply hold up, how would insurances pay for it, how would doctors deal with the numbers of Bipolar demanding it? How could they deal with this being changed from psych to medical dx? This is just not PANDAS they are concerned about- it is the enitre psych community. These are BIG FISH to fry. The implications could be Gi-normus. PANDAS is small potatoes- all the rest of the psych and developmental conditions that could have similar root pathology is not!

 

That's my theory...FWIW.

[MomWithOCDSon]

I have been a RN for 24 years. You are on the right track in my view. Antibiotic resistance IS a serious concern and I don't minimize the implications to the general health of USA. We see at least 1-3 cases of MRSA per day in a community of 30,000 people! Which is the result of drug resistant Staph Aureus. This has been in the last 10 years. I had NEVER seen a MRSA abscess 15 years ago in medicine in hospitals, Nursing home or Home Heath. This is a NEW condition/phenomena as a result of poorly used and wrongly used antibiotics. It is now a common, every day, community acquired infection just like Strep or Pneumonia. All that being said, it only takes seeing one patient with Rheumatic Fever to make you realize what not getting an antibiotic can do.

 

I'm not completely convinced it is all antibiotic related because the jury is still out if long term antibiotics ARE really the end all be all for PANDAS. I think part of it is just acknowledging PANDAS is not so controversial anyway and if the medical establishmet has to say it is real....they have no standards of care how to treat it.

 

One must realize that on several psychiatric fronts- Bipolar, Schizophrenia, OCD there is research that all of these conditions may be medically driven with common roots to viral and/or bacterial causes. Or, autoimmune. This will take the medical community by storm if it comes to pass that all these conditions can be treated with meds other that what has typically been prescribed. Antipsychotics, SSRI's will be replaced by an entire new model of medicine by an Internist/PCP/Peds! Psychiatry will become a lost profession. Internists don't want to deal with "crazy" people- this has the potential to shake medicine at it's core that it has been wrong regarding pscyh conditions for decades.

 

I think this goes much deeper than just antibiotic resistance issues. This is a whole new paradigm for the medical establishment...not just Pandora's Box .... more Pandora's mansion. This would be entire new mindset for medicine. It's too scary and "unreal" for them to even fatham this new paradigm could be the future of medicine. They are woefully unprepared for that potential reality right now. Just think (and I am not saying this is in anyway TRUE) if IVIG became the gold standard for an illness like Bipolar- how would the supply hold up, how would insurances pay for it, how would doctors deal with the numbers of Bipolar demanding it? How could they deal with this being changed from psych to medical dx? This is just not PANDAS they are concerned about- it is the enitre psych community. These are BIG FISH to fry. The implications could be Gi-normus. PANDAS is small potatoes- all the rest of the psych and developmental conditions that could have similar root pathology is not!

 

That's my theory...FWIW.

 

Thanks 911RN. This all makes sense and rings true to our personal, medical-consumer-only experience, though I've never heard of a case of MRSA in our area, let alone seen it or known anyone who developed it. So I had no idea that it was actually increasing, as opposed to that being just another case of fear-mongering from the conservative medical community.

 

I hope and think you're right: that the future of treatment of "mental" illness is on the precipice of major change. I'm sure there are ramifications, such as the potential shortages you ponder, but at some point, you've got to believe that at least future generations, if not this one, will embrace that basic premise that it is better to treat the underlying cause(s) rather than merely medicate the symptoms! Perhaps the likes of Eli Lilly, Merck, Searle, Abbott, etc. could switch focus from SSRIs and anti-psychotics and develop narrow spectrum abx that help treat these conditions and/or even synthetic IVIG materials. Every obstacle can be parlayed into an opportunity!

[MaggiesMoons]

edited

Edited January 20, 2012 by MaggiesMoons

[911RN]

I have been a RN for 24 years. You are on the right track in my view. Antibiotic resistance IS a serious concern and I don't minimize the implications to the general health of USA. We see at least 1-3 cases of MRSA per day in a community of 30,000 people! Which is the result of drug resistant Staph Aureus. This has been in the last 10 years. I had NEVER seen a MRSA abscess 15 years ago in medicine in hospitals, Nursing home or Home Heath. This is a NEW condition/phenomena as a result of poorly used and wrongly used antibiotics. It is now a common, every day, community acquired infection just like Strep or Pneumonia. All that being said, it only takes seeing one patient with Rheumatic Fever to make you realize what not getting an antibiotic can do.

 

I'm not completely convinced it is all antibiotic related because the jury is still out if long term antibiotics ARE really the end all be all for PANDAS. I think part of it is just acknowledging PANDAS is not so controversial anyway and if the medical establishmet has to say it is real....they have no standards of care how to treat it.

 

One must realize that on several psychiatric fronts- Bipolar, Schizophrenia, OCD there is research that all of these conditions may be medically driven with common roots to viral and/or bacterial causes. Or, autoimmune. This will take the medical community by storm if it comes to pass that all these conditions can be treated with meds other that what has typically been prescribed. Antipsychotics, SSRI's will be replaced by an entire new model of medicine by an Internist/PCP/Peds! Psychiatry will become a lost profession. Internists don't want to deal with "crazy" people- this has the potential to shake medicine at it's core that it has been wrong regarding pscyh conditions for decades.

 

I think this goes much deeper than just antibiotic resistance issues. This is a whole new paradigm for the medical establishment...not just Pandora's Box .... more Pandora's mansion. This would be entire new mindset for medicine. It's too scary and "unreal" for them to even fatham this new paradigm could be the future of medicine. They are woefully unprepared for that potential reality right now. Just think (and I am not saying this is in anyway TRUE) if IVIG became the gold standard for an illness like Bipolar- how would the supply hold up, how would insurances pay for it, how would doctors deal with the numbers of Bipolar demanding it? How could they deal with this being changed from psych to medical dx? This is just not PANDAS they are concerned about- it is the enitre psych community. These are BIG FISH to fry. The implications could be Gi-normus. PANDAS is small potatoes- all the rest of the psych and developmental conditions that could have similar root pathology is not!

 

That's my theory...FWIW.

 

Thanks 911RN. This all makes sense and rings true to our personal, medical-consumer-only experience, though I've never heard of a case of MRSA in our area, let alone seen it or known anyone who developed it. So I had no idea that it was actually increasing, as opposed to that being just another case of fear-mongering from the conservative medical community.

 

I hope and think you're right: that the future of treatment of "mental" illness is on the precipice of major change. I'm sure there are ramifications, such as the potential shortages you ponder, but at some point, you've got to believe that at least future generations, if not this one, will embrace that basic premise that it is better to treat the underlying cause(s) rather than merely medicate the symptoms! Perhaps the likes of Eli Lilly, Merck, Searle, Abbott, etc. could switch focus from SSRIs and anti-psychotics and develop narrow spectrum abx that help treat these conditions and/or even synthetic IVIG materials. Every obstacle can be parlayed into an opportunity!

 

I'm glad, hope and pray MRSA is not a-coming attraction to your locale. It started out about 10 years ago here with everyone saying they had "spider bites" that were infected. We inherently treated wrongly with Cephaolosporins (in the beginning) thinking it was brown recluse spider bites...as time went on and cultures were done of more advanced abscesses- it was discovered to be Methcillin Resistant Staph Aureus abscesses.

 

We have treated in our ER as young as 3 months and as old as 80. Again, small population of 30,000! They are painful, red, swollen skin abscesses-often spontaneoulsy open and drain and often get necrotic (black) centers to them. Typically, the only PO antibiotics that are effective is Bactrim and Clindamycin. Some have developed Clinda resistance, as well. Folks often have reccurrent infections. Can be as small as a quarter or a big as your hand. We lance,culture, pack and treat. Once lanced and drained- will often get better with no treatment- as is the case with most abscesses with folks that have decent immune system. The pain is what makes folks seek treament.

 

The brain is one the last, final frontiers of medicine- most other body systems are fairly well understood. Autoimmunity is right up there with the brain. Both are very complex and complicated. I, too, believe we will see progress with many once labled psychiatric or developmental conditions in our lifetime. There is lots of opportunity. I concur with you- treat the underlying root cause, not just cover/mask the symptoms with pharmaceuticals. Remember, medicine once "blood letted" people and killed them due to hypovolemia and anemia and thought it was a great idea. THAT was once a good standard treatment for lots of illnesses? WHAT???? As the Va Slims cig commericials used to say....we have come a long way, baby!

 

Still have a long way to go for so called "mental illness" which, has been utterly broken system and approach for this country for many years. There is lots of research going on within many illnesses....it will come. Just takes time. An educated, demanding consumer public is driving it- many on the parents of this board can take credit as pioneers for change.

[PhillyPA]

My husband works in a hospital and says that mrsa is everywhere. He says he sees it everyday. He says it is so rampant that he would not be surprised that if his nose was swabbed for mrsa it would show up. He said because I am in such close contact with him he wouldn't be surprised if I were a carrier too. It is that prevelant.

[PowPow]

I agree on the MRSA with phillypa. I am also a hospital worker and we all joke that we will NEVER let our nares be swabbed-- lest we end up in isolation!