Bad Speech and OCD

[Lydiasmum]

Over 3 years ago my DD (then 4 yrs) definitely had a PANDAS episode. Yes, living in the UK this is my own diagnosis but it couldn't have been anything else! She woke up one morning with severe tourettes, both motor and vocal tics, panic-stricken, constantly running to the toilet for a pee every few minutes and had a history of 'viiral' sore throat illnesses. The tourettes episode gradually went away after a few months. I had my suspicions of PANDAS so when she developed her next raging temperature and severe sort throat (with red spots all over the roof of her mouth) I asked for a throat swab which came back Strep A positive. Weeks later she started foot dragging, heightened sensory sensitivities and mega anxiety along with mild tics. I kept a diary, got her paediatrician on board with prescribing preventative abx and things got better. She still takes abx and apart from the odd bout of thrush she does well and has 100% attendance at school, no more sore throat illnesses. She has a good multi vitamin and I try to keep her diet clean, although I know we could do better.

 

However, we do have waxing and waning of stuttering and OCD. We are going through a bout right now and I just don't know why. It's bad. No motor tics, but constant checking questions, the same ones over and over again. She talks about her (limited) interests all day long and her speech is very bumpy with lots of silences whilst she struggles to push the words out. Lots of sound repetitions also. I have noticed she is talking much louder too and more pedantic. Aspergers-like I would say.

 

What is going on? I am not aware she has been ill, apart from one weekend when she was listless and a little out of sorts first week of December. She has a varied diet but as well as her fruit and veg has had her share of sweet stuff, particularly as we've been finishing off the Xmas left over naughty treats. Her mood is generally good and I haven't noticed any real tics for nearly 2 years. But her speech is terrible and my heart breaks for her. She is never 100% fluent, but generally 95% and nothing like how it is currently. She doesn't seem more anxious than normal but is repeating her checking questions constantly.

 

I am conscious of her long term abx but scared to wean her off. I have tried probiotics but they seemed to make her agitated and hyperactive. She also has this reaction to antihistimanes (she does often get blocked/nasally). I'm not sure what I can do to help.

 

I have read about the TS/OCD/Stuttering connection and am now wondering about plain old TS. We haven't seen a 'PANDAS' flare in years.

 

We are on the autistic spectrum pathway - she is seeing a speech and language therapist on Monday. They are trying to determine if she is 'spoken language impaired', 'ASC' or both.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Lydiasmum

[MomWithOCDSon]

Lydiasmum --

 

During his PANDAS episode our DS had the same speech issues: repeating words over and over again, trying to get a thought out, losing his train of thought altogether, repeating a whole phrase over and over again. And he frequently paced while displaying these verbal patterns, as well. We called him "kinetic," because the movement seemed to help him somehow move the words forward, though not always. This was one of the behaviors that hung on longer than some of the others, for whatever reason, and beyond these extended verbal "tics," along with one strange leg-dragging tic that was dispensed with permanently pretty early in his healing, our DS's PANDAs presentation was solely OCD.

 

I'm not sure what's behind it except that it is some illustration of the brain inflammation. Even though your DD hasn't had any notable illness lately, almost any immune event (virus, allergies) could potentially drive more inflammation, and perhaps that's behind this ramp-up?

 

My DS's speech patterns slowly returned to normal over time, without speech therapy or other speech-specific interventions. The improvement seemed to naturally follow the improvement of his brain function and organization overall; as his thoughts got less "fuzzy" and more organized, so did his speech.

 

Have you tried different strains of probiotics to see if there might be one that would agree with her? There was another thread on here several months ago regarding different probiotic strains and what was thought to work best depending on some phenotypes, etc. If I can dig it up, I'll drop you a link.

 

Hang in there!