Writing difficulties

[JAG10]

My dd sure does. Her change in writing was 1 of the 1st symptoms that tipped us off to P.A.N.D.A.S.

 

She had strep at age 2yrs. She was on maybe 1 antibiotic since then (she's now 9yo). Last spring she had an infection and was put on a round of Flagyl. On day 3 of treatment, she was coloring and writing and I could not get over the difference. She's always had horrible visual-motor skills and has been dx with dysgraphia. As a pediatric OT, I sat there stunned at the 3+ year gains my daughter had made. And the only thing I had changed was the Flagyl.

 

Made me think that I should require blood tests on any of my future handwriting clients

 

OOOOhhh! Pediatric OT, yeah!!!!

 

I'm not familiar w/Flagyl. Is she still taking it? Or have you pursued other treatments since your discovery?

 

I can relate to your curiosity about other children. I'm a school-based SLP and I have a handful that I have strong suspicions about with regards to their language skills. I see in my own dd10 marked swings in her word retrieval and ability to express herself fluently and with ease (plus the writing & alot of other stuff). I was discussing her with my special education director; she had never heard of PANDAS and we wondered together how many of our students w/special needs could be.....

[Pace2009]

My dd sure does. Her change in writing was 1 of the 1st symptoms that tipped us off to P.A.N.D.A.S.

 

She had strep at age 2yrs. She was on maybe 1 antibiotic since then (she's now 9yo). Last spring she had an infection and was put on a round of Flagyl. On day 3 of treatment, she was coloring and writing and I could not get over the difference. She's always had horrible visual-motor skills and has been dx with dysgraphia. As a pediatric OT, I sat there stunned at the 3+ year gains my daughter had made. And the only thing I had changed was the Flagyl.

 

Made me think that I should require blood tests on any of my future handwriting clients

 

OOOOhhh! Pediatric OT, yeah!!!!

 

I'm not familiar w/Flagyl. Is she still taking it? Or have you pursued other treatments since your discovery?

 

I can relate to your curiosity about other children. I'm a school-based SLP and I have a handful that I have strong suspicions about with regards to their language skills. I see in my own dd10 marked swings in her word retrieval and ability to express herself fluently and with ease (plus the writing & alot of other stuff). I was discussing her with my special education director; she had never heard of PANDAS and we wondered together how many of our students w/special needs could be.....

 

 

Yeah, SLPs : ) I've often wondered if there is a connection between my daughter's speech issues and this. She has articulation issues and stuttering--the worse experience of this was following an awful flu virus. She was blocking and scrunching up her face and everything. And amazingly it all goes away on antibiotics. We also see beautiful, expressive, complex conversations when she's on antibiotics. Whereas off of it, it's very much typical aspergers fact telling and gathering (just the facts, and only the facts, mam).

 

She was dx with ADHD at age 5, Anxiety D/O at age 6, and Aspergers at age 7. She's just developed tics last month following a fever. What's very intriguing to me is that what has confounded all of the professionals that have evaluated her is that her 1st 3 years of development do not match classic autism or aspergers at all, but she very much matches an aspergers presentation today.

 

Flagyl is also known as metronidazole (it's sometimes termed more of an anti-microbial than antibiotic). Unfortunately, if taken for longterm it can lead to neuropathies, so we can't leave her on it for very long. And she regresses quickly once it's stopped. It is commonly used to treat gut infections that are anaerobic or parasites. It's typically the 1st thing used against Clostridia (or C-Diff) infections. Vancomyocin being the next med used.

 

Her strep titers were high, so we are starting with more of the typical PANDAS antibiotics before I'm willing to clear out her gut on Vanco. We are doing a 5 day steroid burst to see if IVIg would be a good route to pursue.

 

Yes, I think there are a lot of things that could physically explain the neuropsychiatric, behavioral, speech, and visual motor symptoms we see in the pediatric population.