Sleep

[Hayley]

My DD7 has always been a kid who has needed a lot of sleep and we know her behavior (even pre-PANDAS) always slides when she is tired. After doing really well the past three weeks on a treatment dose of augmentin, we've had a rough week and we're trying to figure out how much of it is sleep and/or if she could be flaring. Last Sunday evening she had a wild day (her birthday party) and a late night (friends stayed late after the party). We suspected we might pay the price, but figured we'd take the chance given she was doing so well and she was really looking forward to the party.

 

Thorughout the week she's had a lot of ups and downs, very emotional, weepy some evenings and/or early mornings, hyperactive at others, but not really too bad. She's had a few little tantrums, but we've felt like overall they were pretty age appropriate and any resemblance to a PANDAS rage/meltdown were more her testing limits, especially since we've reinstated some rules that had gone out the window when she was really at her worst. Whereas she was really clearly out of control of her own behavior during the worst of her original PANDAS flare (e.g., if the flare were over wanting extra cookies, no amount of giving in would stop the rage once it started), in this past week's tantrums it seemed she was acting out for a reaction (e.g., if we gave her the extra cookies, she'd stop).

 

Then this morning she was just really off the wall -- wouldn't take her medicine, wouldn't eat breakfast, kicking, throwing, name calling, wild eyes, etc. We haven't seen her like this in well over three weeks (before she started at her current dose of abx. and this definitely felt more like hte rages we'd experienced before her medication was in place. She had gotten up super early this morning (thanks to her little brother) and was clearly tired. She does not seem to be sick at all though her sister has swimmer's ear (not contagious, right?) and a cold and she's in public school so of course she is exposed to stuff every day.

 

My question for you all is this...when your kids are NOT flaring, do they have bouts of regression into PANDAS behavior related to exhaustion? How do you handle it (aside from heavily monitoring sleep which we try to do, but we also want to let her be a normal 7 year old). If not sleep related, how would you handle it given she's already on a steady dose of Augmentin and is showing no signs of other illness? It's just so crushing when you think you're making progress only to expeirence this type of setback..... Any advice?