Could this be PANDAS?

[Crunchfly]

My son was diagnosed with strep and after 10 days on antibiotics, two days later his strep symptoms started again. An overnight culture revealed he was still positive and they put him on another antibiotic for 10 more days. Two days after stopping this last antibiotic (this past Monday), he started opening his mouth like a fish often, and more recently started jutting his jaw out to the side. I know these two simple tics are not as dramatic as most of what I've read about PANDAS, but I the correlation to him having strep is pretty apparent.

 

He did have a nose scrunch tic about this time last year (and he had strep 4 times last winter, but by the time I figured out it was a tic and not a true itchy nose it had stopped).

 

I have a call into the doc, and will get an appointment for early next week.

 

Any advice? Is this fixable?

[airial95]

It does sound likely. Getting early treatment can make a huge difference. Is your doc willing to give long term abx?

[Crunchfly]

I'm not sure yet. I just heard back from the doctors office, and will see the doc on Monday. The nurse was familiar with PANDAS and sounded concerned, so I hope that's a good start.

[Crunchfly]

We saw the doctor this morning. I was prepared to have to advocate a bit, but after I described the situation, she immediately suggested an overnight culture and bloodwork to check for antibodies. If either are positive, we will be doing 10 days of augmentin followed by 4 weeks of amoxicillian. So now we wait...

[JuliaFaith]

While you are waiting, you could do regular Motrin dosing to keep any inflammation down.

 

Sorry, in a hurry.

Edited April 8, 2013 by JuliaFaith

[nicklemama]

You are on this very early. If he will be given the month of antibiotics, you may be well ahead of the game.

[Crunchfly]

We received the results from the bloodwork today

 

ASO 281

ADB 198

 

We started a 10 day course of augmentin this afternoon that will be followed by 30-60 days on once a day amoxicillin.

 

What should we expect?

 

Any recommendations for probiotics?

[Missmom]

We tried something similar when my son was first diagnosed, and the augmentin worked great. We then switched to keflex once daily as preventative and his symptoms all started to return. Amoxicillin alone does not work well for a lot of pandas kids, like you said your child got strep while on amox. Mine did too. So, don't be surprised if the augmentin works great and then there is a relapse. My son needs long term augmentin to help him. You are really on the ball, hopefully you can nip this in the bud early....