Herbal Treatment for Pandas

[LNN]

This was just published on the Latitudes articles section of the website. Thought it may help someone...

 

http://latitudes.org/dan-shen-become-important-treatment-pandaspans/

[jan251]

The first study cited in the article is very, very interesting and well worth a read for those who like to read medical studies. I don't recall seeing it before. Group A Streptococcus intranasal infection promotes CNS infiltration by streptococcal-specific Th17 cells

 

Unfortunately, I find any discussions of BBB a bit confusing in light of the discovery of lymph vessels directly going to (exiting from?) the brain that was published last summer. I was sort of skimming but I didn't see that discovery noted in the study as a possible avenue for immune system components reaching the brain. I hope to read through this study again later, more carefully, for a better understanding.

 

While Dan Shen (salvia miltiorhizza, as Buhner calls it if I recall correctly) closing the BBB is also an interesting idea, it would be helpful to know whether salvia has actually been used in any PANDAS patients in her experience or anyone else's experience, or whether the discussion is entirely theoretical.

 

It seems to me that a lot of herbal treatments should be theoretically useful in PANDAS/PANS, especially for the underlying infections or for interrupting inflammatory processes, though we have not seen success, potentially due to the complexity of my child's case. (I do happen to have Dan Shen, the Planetary Herbals Salvia, in my cabinet though we did not use it for any significant length of time. If I were to try it again, I might rather buy the Nature's Health brand instead, which comes in a lower dose capsule, rather than the giant, hard horse-pill Planetary version that we have that I'd break in half or thirds or quarters and put inside an empty capsule.)