Strep pneumonia IgG antibody results

[kos_mom]

Dr. T had DD, 19, do strep pneumonia IgG antibody panel (14 serotypes). Does anyone have any idea of what insights one can gather from the results? DD is very low on all 14--she's had pneumonia twice, but unclear if they were strep pneumonia. She's never received a pneumonia vaccine that I know of. I found a table on the Mayo clinic website that published levels for healthy, nonimmunized adults in Rochester--these are sky high compared to DD's results. (http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-catalog/print/83640)

 

Now I am wondering if DD's low results here (and also cox sackie--no antibody detected and she's definitely had that)are partly behind Dr. L's decision to rerun her immunoglobulin panel and IgG subclasses again. Everything on these was within normal range except IgE; IgG subclass 3 was at the bottom of normal range.

 

Thanks for any assitance!

[LaurenK]

I think unless you have been vaccinated the titers should be low unless you have been exposed.

[kos_mom]

That's what I would have thought, but the Mayo data is specifically for healthy, *unimmunized* adults and the antibodies are relatively high....

[peglem]

It could be an indication of a specific antibody deficiency- an inability to mount an adequate defense against encapsulated bacteria.

[kos_mom]

Peglem,

 

Thanks--I managed to piece specific antibody deficiency as possible dx when the board was offline. Sounds like the conventional response is to try a pneumonvax challenge, which can be problematic for PANDAS kids. Another hornet's nest!

 

DD, 19, has barely left the house for a year and has managed to come down with strep (probably twice), a sinus infection, pneumonia that required six days in hospital, a 103 fever (possibly related to strep but doctor in ER refused to culture), and last week a fever of 100.5 with black vomit. Had no idea what to do with the latter so I let it slide.

 

Am becoming concerned with all the recurrent vomiting but am hesitant to go to gastrointerologist (yet another doctor!) until I get better clarity from Dr. L on latest round of tests. Nothing to do but wait I guess.

 

Ko's Mom

[peglem]

Okay, black vomit sounds really serious! Is that blood?

[kos_mom]

Think it's blood--possible she has small gastric tear owing to vomiting. It just happened the once a week ago so hope it's ok to have let it slide. Honestly, she has so many things going on all the time we'd be at doctors 24/7 if I paid full attention to all of it. Maybe should see if I can get her into GI next week--she already has a blood draw (for hereditary and mitochondrial disease check) and another doctor's appt scheduled next week (to check on out of whack hormones--yet another issue!), plus a visit to psychiatrist.

[Stephanie2]

I'm not sure if what I am about to tell you is at all related to what you are asking, but your daughter sounds like my youngest pandas son (I have two pandas boys). My youngest (4.5 years old) has had strep (group A) and pneumonia too many times to count in the past year. I had him muscle tested a month ago and (even tho it didn't come up in the labs when he was in the ped ICU) he tested positive for strep pneumonia. We do strictly homeopathic remedies for all illnesses (with the exception of the first round of pnuemonia b/c I panicked and took him to ER before calling homeopath, and of course they admitted him and drugged him up pretty damn good and he ended up with steroid induced psychosis and a severe bowel infection from all the antibitoics, but that's another story). The part I am tryin to get at is that we started a "strep pneumonia nosode" (also referred to as pneumococcinum), which is a homeopathic remedy made from strep pneumonia. He will be taking it for quite awhile. Within 3 days I found that it took care of some low level pandas symptoms that he had been having recently. It is definitely doing somehting and I also feel that it might be strengthening his immune system. He has been in school for over a month with no antibiotics and no infections, no days off school. A lifetime record for him

 

For the record, we treat strep infections with a nosode called strep pyogenes nosode. Very effective and fast.