These are articles we either learned a lot from, would share with friends and family to teach them more about our son’s disorder, and/or referenced over and over to confirm things such as healing time after IVIG. I’m not necessarily saying I agree with everything in every article, but they helped us in one way or another and they are my most shared articles. Now all in one place. 🙂
I just love this functional doctor’s easy-to-read explanation of and perspective on PANDAS. I also love that he appreciates that medicine and medical treatment along with supportive natural care are the ideal path. Very simple read and you’ll learn a lot of info in a short period of time.
Wow, three years into PANDAS (March 2019 for me) I was sent this podcast (that is thankfully also transcribed) and it is a WEALTH of knowledge! It was very reaffirming to me because so much of what she mentions: websites, documentaries, books, natural supplements, PANDAS treatments, etc are things I have personally been recommending to other PANDAS mamas for years–but much more important than the positive confirmation, the additional knowledge I picked up listening to this and then reading/highlighting the transcription of it, was incredible! Start here. And end here. It will be overwhelming if you are new to PANDAS/PANS, but listen to it right away and then circle back around to this podcast again a few months in and the knowledge will build on your experience and give this info a better absorption rate!
https://www.fxmedicine.com.au/content/integrative-paediatrics-pandas-part-2-dr-elisa-song
This next article, while not specific to PANDAS, struck a cord with me because it discusses something I think of all the time, but hadn’t coined a phrase for: Intellectual Humility. The idea of being able to admit when you were wrong because you didn’t know something. We’ve been dismissed by doctors or given incorrect information by doctors, that due to what I do know, I was able to catch and correct. I have, on many occasions, told a doctor “with respect, you simply do not know what you do not know.”
This one gets me every time. The dads in these PANDAS families have it really tough, too. Everyone focuses on the ill child and the stretched-too-thin mom, but let us not forget how helpless and stressed and sad the dads are, as well. Men don’t always show stress like females do; there is a balance and a difference to the way each manifests his/her feelings of the doom and gloom blues over how daunting and scary PANDAS can be. Nearly every parent that reaches out to me is the mom, but when I ask how dad is doing, I usually learn that he’s barely hanging in there. I love that this dad stopped to put pen to paper and relay just how tough it is for them.
I’m so grateful that we stumbled onto info about the importance of choosing the RIGHT probiotic early in our son’s PANDAS journey. Most PANDAS parents have heard of the importance of giving their child a probiotic–so important for overall gut health (gut = 2nd brain) and to combat the damage caused by antibiotics. But, do you know most probiotics actually contain Strep?! So does nearly every single yogurt and salad dressings made with yogurt! We avoid these altogether just in case our son is that sensitive! “S.” on ingredient list usually stands “streptococcus.” We love the probiotic this article led us to find.
http://www.pandashopeforhealing.com/Blog-Blog/2015/4/Can-Probiotics-Make-PANDAS-Worse
For those suffering from bad thought OCD, this super simple article describes it so well. Reading most of it (I was always careful and choosy about what Hudson saw or read about PANDAS or any of his symptoms so as not to scare or disappoint him more) aloud to Hudson seemed to really help him. He was able to rationalize that an article like this existed because a substantial amount of people suffered from Bad Thought OCD.