Seeing symptoms flare up then calm down, why?

[LindaMW]

What does this mean?

 

My son has been on zith since the beginning of this month (Oct) and every two weeks we see a huge flare up, agitation, anxiety worse, ocd, mild fever, dark circles under eyes, then it will calm down. Unfortunately it does not go away, but gets a little milder with anxiety, ocd, no dark circles.

 

We have been battling this for two years, have a history with strep and mycop. He has not been tested recently but something is going on if we are seeing this yo-yo effect. We just go on the zith because we see changes and see some improvement from it.

 

I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this up and down symptom course.

 

Thanks

[pr40]

the reaction at the beginning of abx round is probably herxheimer. what you are seeing after that is, again probably, an improvement of symptoms. in our case, we had the same pattern, very gradual improvement over a long period of time (12 months) on abx. there is nothing quick with PANDAS and it is all up and down. has your ds been on abx only for a month? have you tried anything else?

[hugs2day]

We had the same cycle early on with my youngest son. It was a two week cycle then a weekly cycle (Thursdays). The cycle finally stopped after adding flagyl for 21 days and repeating for 3 months. It was the treatment that put my son over the hump. The cycles are gone and he has made greater strides in healing. He had a lump behind his right ear at the onset of PANdAS diagnosis and after the 3 months of flagyl the lump is gone and so much of the ocd went away (the worst of the ocd went away). Some improvement on anxiety and no more rages.

 

It took a lot of antibiotics. daily zith, occasional 2nd antibiotic like Keflex, omnicef, or Bactrim and then flagyl was added and then the fog lifted. This month on Oct. 29th is the 3 year mark of the day I lost my son to the madness of PANDAS, he is about 90 percent now with antibiotics and supplements and other efforts. Never could get IVIG approved by the insurance company but he always responded well to abx.

[qannie47]

That is the million dollar question.....I know that is has been theorized as part of the healing process, die off, etc., but I am not sure anybody really knows...But it is real, and it happens...

[rowingmom]

I couldn't say ours was a measurable cycle, but DD did flare with any type of infection, viruses included.

 

At this time of year there are certainly no lack of illness being spread through schools, so it may appear to be cyclic if your child is responding to every infection going around.

 

Interesting that hugs2day mentioned flagyl, because we had the same clearing of cold/flu-related flares with tindamax (another cyst-buster). Although DD's tindmax was combined with other abx, so maybe it was the combination as well.