From Strep Throat to OCD, Anxiety, and Hallucinations – Good Housekeeping
See it hereOctober 15, 2015 is a date that is seared in Kathleen Brady Stimpert’s memory forever. That was the day her Harry Potter-obsessed 5-year-old son, Sawyer, completely changed. “I came home from work and found Sawyer in the bathroom,” she says. “My parents were in town, and he wouldn’t let anyone touch him; he kept scrubbing his arms and legs, saying, ‘I feel like there are germs all over me.'”
Stolen Child: A New Film About PANDAS – London Free Press
See it hereAll three of Kerry Henrikson’s children were diagnosed with pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcus — better known as PANDAS — leading to frequent hospital visits and prescriptions for drugs that didn’t seem to work. Symptoms of the disease often look common enough to be diagnosed as mental health conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder, or infections like strep throat. Unsurprisingly, treatment for those more-common conditions do not help children suffering from PANDAS.
Only after a Chatham doctor diagnosed Henrikson’s children with the disease did the mother begin to see a change.
Henrikson’s story is known around Sarnia. Soon it will be known by people around the world thanks to the UK-based Liftoff Global Network, a virtual film festival hosting Stolen Childhood and others on their site from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20
How Inflammation Could Cause Depression – CBS
Schizophrenia Linked to Abnormal Response to EBV – Johns Hopkins Medicine
See it hereNew research from Johns Hopkins Medicine and Sheppard Pratt Health System shows that people in the study with schizophrenia also have higher levels of antibodies against the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a herpes virus that causes infectious mononucleosis, so-called mono.
Texas Mother Warns of Devastating Children’s Disorder Caused by Strep Throat – CBS Austin
See it hereIn April 2017, Jennifer House’s world changed forever. Her 9-year-old daughter Caroline had just returned to school after battling the flu.
The next day, she came home with a sore throat, stomach ache, and fever. Jennifer immediately took her to the doctor, where Caroline was diagnosed with strep throat.
“She went to bed that night and woke up the next day a completely different child,” says Jennifer.
When Doctor’s Tell Patient’s It’s All In Their Heads – CNN
See it hereWhen 7-year-old Bailey Sheehan arrived at a hospital in Oregon partially paralyzed, a doctor said the girl was faking her symptoms to get her parents’ attention because she was jealous of her new baby sister.
But that doctor was proved wrong when an MRI showed that the girl had acute flaccid myelitis or AFM, a polio-like disease that’s struck hundreds of children since 2014.
Childhood Infections Linked to Mental Illness – NPR
See it hereResearchers have traced a connection between some infections and mental illnesses like schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder. New research from Denmark bolsters that connection. The study, published Thursday in JAMA Psychiatry, shows that a wide variety of infections, even common ones like bronchitis, are linked to a higher risk of many mental illnesses in children and adolescents.
Pittsburgh Doctor Making Strides Treating PANDAS – CBS
See it hereParents say it is like their child changed overnight, but now a local doctor is on a personal mission to be on the cutting edge of treatment and diagnosis.
Harrowing Story of PANDAS – Canadian TV News
See it hereOne afternoon in the winter of 2017, Corie Entrop’s 10-year-old son came home from school and began pulling out his hair. When the Alberta mother pleaded with him to tell her why he was doing it, he was unable to provide an explanation.
“I don’t know,” he responded. “I need to pull out my hair.”
Letter to Cincinnati Children’s Addressing Grand Rounds – Beth A. Maloney, Esq.
Read the full letter hereOn August 28, 2018, Donald Gilbert, MD gave a grand rounds presentation promoted as being about a disorder that he neither recognizes nor treats. Two MOC credits were offered to those who “successfully answered” questions following the presentation. Presumably that meant answering in accordance with Dr. Gilbert’s stance, which is the minority viewpoint and in opposition to the NIMH, hundreds of supportive research studies, clinics at prestigious universities, and the army of physicians who aggressively treat PANDAS nationwide.
