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So approx. 8 months ago my 6 year old began having tics. Hard eye blinking a few times a day. I brushed it off and went on about my business. This continued for a few months and progressively got worse. More frequent, harder blinking, and now he's shrugging his shoulders with it as well. I began researching tics and everything pointed to touretts syndrome. As a father I was crushed. I haven't cried in more than 20 years and broke down like a big baby in front of my wife. We took him to the doctor and were told there's nothing we can do to test him for touretts, he'll just have to be watched for a year. He'll need to have the physical tics and some type of motor tic in that year to be touretts. They ran several other tests on him to rule out other diseases all being negative. I'm now thinking the worst and how bad my child will be affected by this disease. As I continued my research I came across a new type of disease called Pandas. PANDAS is an acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections, a rare disease that usually appears in children. This term describes a hypothesis that there exists a subset of children with rapid onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and/or tic disorders and these symptoms are caused by group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal (GABHS) infections.[1] The proposed link between infection and these disorders is that an initial autoimmune reaction to a GABHS infection produces antibodies that continues to interfere with basal ganglia function, causing symptom exacerbations.[2][3]
The PANDAS hypothesis was based on observations in clinical case studies at the US National Institute of Health and in subsequent clinical trials where children appeared to have dramatic and sudden OCD exacerbations and tic disorders following infections.[4] There is supportive evidence for the link between streptococcus infection and onset in some cases of OCD and tics, but proof of causality has remained elusive.[5][6][7] The PANDAS hypothesis is controversial; whether it is a distinct entity differing from other cases of Tourette syndrome (TS)/OCD is debated.[3][8][9][10][11]
PANDAS has not been validated as a disease entity;[4] it is not listed as a diagnosis by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) is a 2012 proposal describing another subset of acute-onset OCD cases including "not only disorders potentially associated with a preceding infection, but also acute-onset neuropsychiatric disorders without an apparent environmental precipitant or immune dysfunction".[12]
After reading this I was back to the doctor with my little boy. I was told by the doctor that he would give him some antibiotics and see if it was indeed Pandas. Two weeks later only a few tics. A month later no tics at all.
I thought I would put out the info just in case there were any other parents having a similar issue with their child. Sorry for the long post but I thought it was important and this disease is relatively new.
The PANDAS hypothesis was based on observations in clinical case studies at the US National Institute of Health and in subsequent clinical trials where children appeared to have dramatic and sudden OCD exacerbations and tic disorders following infections.[4] There is supportive evidence for the link between streptococcus infection and onset in some cases of OCD and tics, but proof of causality has remained elusive.[5][6][7] The PANDAS hypothesis is controversial; whether it is a distinct entity differing from other cases of Tourette syndrome (TS)/OCD is debated.[3][8][9][10][11]
PANDAS has not been validated as a disease entity;[4] it is not listed as a diagnosis by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) is a 2012 proposal describing another subset of acute-onset OCD cases including "not only disorders potentially associated with a preceding infection, but also acute-onset neuropsychiatric disorders without an apparent environmental precipitant or immune dysfunction".[12]
After reading this I was back to the doctor with my little boy. I was told by the doctor that he would give him some antibiotics and see if it was indeed Pandas. Two weeks later only a few tics. A month later no tics at all.
I thought I would put out the info just in case there were any other parents having a similar issue with their child. Sorry for the long post but I thought it was important and this disease is relatively new.
