pandas vs. pitand

[kimballot]

We had an interesting appointment with our LLMD yesterday discussing these topics.

 

My daughter initially had strep, mycoplasma, lyme and babesia. All are gone now except the babesia. Anyway, I told him that her OCD/TICs are gone, but that she still has mild anxiety (in terms of going to sleep alone, etc..) , which I felt was correlated with Bartonella. She ended up testing negative for Bartonella, but still positive for Babesia.

 

He said that he disagrees with a great deal of the sentiments in the lyme/PANDAS world about certain bacterias causing certain symptoms. He said that if any of these bacterias/parasites can cross the blood brain barrier and enter the brain, then they can create a neurological/psychiatric symptoms. He said he felt that the babesia was creating the anxiety in my daughter.

 

So, again, I do not understand all of the controversy between lyme and PANDAS. I think it is all PITANDS and different microbes can create the same symptoms.

 

Elizabeth

 

Elizabeth - I think the question here is: Are the psychiatric symptoms a direct result of the bacteria infecting the brain, or are the psychiatric symptoms the result of inflammation from an infection allowing a breach in the blood brain, which allows antibodies (including antiibody 24.3.1 that is implicated in Cunningham's work) to cross the blood brain barrier and attach to basal ganglia neurons, and subsequently increase Cam Kinase II activation. They are really two different problems, and I think that is why we have been having so much lyme vs. PANDAS controversy and PITANDS vs. PANDAS controversy.

 

IMO - (definitely not the authority here - just what I think I am hearing)... It is possible for lyme to directly attack the brain. Someone with lyme would not necessarily have PANDAS. Someone with lyme may not have an exacerbation in PANDAS symptoms with other types of infections. The lyme needs to be treated - and then (I think in theory) the problems would be gone.

 

On the other hand, it is possible (and I believe it is true in my son's case), that some children, due to a genetic predisposition, have an unusual reaction to infections. They have a breach in their blood brain barrier and they have antibodies that react with the basal ganglia. I think that very often this is due to strep, and I think strep is the most recognizable because we have standard, widely-used tests for strep. This is PANDAS. I also think that this is often due to sinusitis, which may be caused by things like staph or s. pneumoniae. This inflammation and breach in the BBB may also be due to a mycoplasma infection or a lyme infection. In those cases, we call it PITAND. I believe it can also be due to a viral infeciton, such as the flu, and an article from the 1990s supports this thinking. I do not think PITAND is widely known - mainly because PANDAS is a more definitive group.

 

So... that is where my thoughts are at this point in time. Is that consistent with what your LLMD shared with you?

 

Thanks for the info!

Edited September 10, 2010 by kimballot