Is your child mentally ill? Maybe not.
Overnight, a child transforms from happy-go-lucky to anxious, irritable, and obsessive. It seems to the family that the child must have been possessed in their sleep. This happened to my pre-adolescent daughter last winter. Even as a family physician also trained in Integrative Medicine, I did not know what had happened to my little girl.
An Abrupt Onset
While my family and I were spectators at a wrestling match, she began grunting, holding her ears, and banging her head with her hands. I thought she must have an acute illness or low blood sugar, but this was not the case. We tried to get her to eat something. We took her out of the gymnasium and she calmed down somewhat in the car, but that first tantrum-like episode was just the beginning of what would become a frequent recurrence over the next nine months.
The episodes came in clusters of days to weeks. Symptoms ranged from mild irritability and agitation to panic attacks to moaning and grunting with limbs flailing. At times, the extreme behavior could last for less than half an hour. Other times, it could go on for hours at a time, ending only with the exhaustion of sleep. Her overall mood remained irritable, especially with her siblings and parents. She showed mental and emotional regression, such as playing with toddler and preschool-aged toys. She lost her initiative and desire to participate in activities, and she fatigued easily from her usual sports. She became unmistakably indecisive; even simple choices, like deciding between orange or cranberry juice, could bring on panic. As a gifted student, she showed no significant decline at school, but returned home exhausted, complained of body aches, and often desired to stay in bed.
Professionals Were Mystified
We wondered, was this merely a stage? The onset of puberty? The beginning of a mental illness? It was frightening and heartbreaking to watch her suffer. She could not be consoled by any of our interventions. She was unable to describe how she felt to me, her father, or her siblings, nor to the psychologist that we eventually took her to for help. The therapist tried cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy and play therapy, but was unable to make any progress over several months. With the psychologistâs help we tried âno-talkâ therapy and other techniques recommended for children on the autistic spectrum. We were discouraged when the therapy seemed to trigger and even worsen her mental state. We tested for Lyme disease and other physiologic illnesses, and we even did a brain MRI, in fear of a tumor presenting itself with such dramatic behavioral change.
Thankfully, her psychologist reached out to her listserv of colleagues, anxious to find some help for our child. After receiving the response, âHave you considered PANDAS?â she passed the question along to me. I immediately began reading and researching to see just what this furry black and white bear might have to do with my suffering child. I will be forever grateful for that suggestion.
What Is PANDAS?
Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Strep (PANDAS) is a little-known cause of neuropsychiatric disturbance in children. In retrospect it was easy to diagnose: our child had had strep pharyngitis (strep throat) and was treated with antibiotics (azithromycin) ten days before that first episode at the wrestling match. Her sudden behavioral changes were due to an autoimmune reaction resulting in antibodies attacking the basal ganglia in her brain. This part of the brain is involved in emotional processing, motor expression and motivational planning.
The picture was clear but unfortunately I had been unaware of this conditionâs existence, as were the two other family doctors who initially evaluated her. The diagnosis was later confirmed, first by her dramatic positive response to one month of antibiotics to treat strep, and then by the pediatric infectious disease specialist she eventually saw. Now, two months after beginning treatment, she continues penicillin daily to prevent further episodes of strep, which could trigger new psychiatric symptoms, but she has returned to herself: laughing, playing sports, and enjoying her life again. Her enthusiasm, initiative, and spontaneity are back!
Commonly Mistaken for Mental Illness
There has been controversy surrounding the PANDAS diagnosis since it was first defined by Susan Swedo, MD, at the NIMH in 1998. It seems this controversy is at least part of the reason why I and the other doctors were still ignorant of the condition more than 20 years later. It is thought to be a rare illness; however, I suspect that it is not actually that rare, just rarely diagnosed. When a child presents with a sudden onset of emotional or behavioral symptoms to their family doctor, they are frequently given a quick psychiatric diagnosis. A label of anxiety, ADHD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder is neatly applied, and then psychiatric drugs are prescribed to the child who is already emotionally disturbed. These labels describe the childâs symptoms, but they do not identify the cause of those symptoms. It would be like treating the vomiting of acute appendicitis with an anti-nausea pill rather than with the surgical operation required to remove the infected appendix. The child will continue to get sicker while the drug temporarily masks the symptoms.
Psychiatric Medications Add Confusion and Worsen Behavior
If the child is given selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to treat the OCD or anxiety, the drugs have their expected effects which frequently include hyperstimulation, anxiety and mania, and the child might become more aggressive, even violent. An organic illness is not taken into consideration and most often it is assumed that the child is getting worse, not that they are being negatively impacted by the medicationâs expected effects.
If the child is given stimulants his behavior might shift from hyperactivity and agitation to apathy. Children given stimulants are frequently observed to lack spontaneity, pleasure, or curiosity. They are likely to experience any combination of the effects listed in the medicationâs package insert: drowsiness, loss of appetite, lethargy, insomnia, facial tics, mood swings, or psychotic episodes. Soon, the already suffering child can have depression added to their diagnostic label. If he did not already meet all the criteria for PANDAS, which includes OCD, psychomotor tics, and anxiety, he certainly will with the addition of psychiatric drugs. Unfortunately, the root cause is missed as the child is drugged and his symptoms are worsening.
Look for the Root Cause, not a Psychiatric Label
A sea change is needed in the evaluation of children with perceived psychological disturbances. The widespread psychiatric diagnosing of children has led clinicians to underdiagnose physical disorders. Parents are told that their child has a fictitious biochemical imbalance in the brain while real medical disorders are overlooked. Each child with a new onset or sudden change of emotional or behavioral disruption needs to be evaluated for underlying infectious causes which could be leading to his suffering. This includes evaluation for a streptococcal infection, but also a long list of other pathogens such as Lyme, Bartonella, and Mycoplasma which are also known to cause PANS (Pediatric Acute Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome). Other etiologies of abrupt behavioral and emotional change must also be considered, including head injury, concussion, trauma, abuse, and exposure to toxins and drugs. Many prescription drugs, especially psychotropics, can induce disruptive cognitive and psychiatric symptoms.
Clinicians Need a New Awareness
We need to educate our doctors about this problem and identify these children early in their illness when it is the most responsive to treatment. Treatment for PANDAS includes appropriate antibiotics, cognitive behavioral therapy and in some severe cases immunologic therapy (such as steroids or intravenous immunoglobulin, IVIG). Certainly, let us stop labeling kids with psychiatric disorders and giving them lifelong diagnoses and brain-altering psychiatric drugs in the name of treatment. These suffering children and their families need appropriate care, effective treatment, and compassionate understanding.
The medical community has been slow to accept this infectious etiology of a neuropsychiatric disorder, but the researchers having been working hard and the evidence is clear. The newest guidelines from the National Institute of Mental Health confirm the realities of PANDAS/PANS. Now the word needs to be spread to doctors, counselors, teachers, and parents: If a child has a sudden and abrupt behavioral or emotional change, look for the root cause first. Treat the real disease and stop the suffering.
I’m glad to hear that you were able to figure it out. Maybe if more people paid attention to real medicine, we could avoid some, even if only some, of the needless drugging. Good luck to you, your daughter, and the rest of your family.
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How nice, thanks
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Thank you. Thank you!! Your article is so well written and shines a light on a huge problem in our medical system. Mental health diagnoses are often a diagnosis of exclusion and if practitioners arenât aware of ALL possible medical diagnoses, it can be disasterous for the patient.
Other overlooked diagnoses are POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia Syndrome) or Mast Cell Activation Disorder, both can hit young people fairly sudden and can look âpsychiatric.â The immune systems interrelationship with brain function/mood/behavioral symptoms continues to be an area that needs further study and awareness. I think psychoneuroimmunology is a fascinating area of study and I wouldnât be at all surprised if in the future we learn more about what other problems in the body can affect the brain. Lupus, Parkinsonâs, anti-NMDA autoimmune encephalitis, Lyme disease, etc. can all have brain symptoms, including psychosis.
Finding a good, functional medicine focused practitioner can be helpful. Unfortunately many doctors are too busy to keep up on everything.
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As a parent of a child with Lyme-triggered PANS, thank you for helping raise awareness. This disorder can turn families lives upside down and have a horrific impact not only on the child who is ill but their siblings as well. I would like to mention that we received guidance and confirmation of my son’s diagnosis with the Cunningham Panel of tests. It indicated high levels of certain antibodies associated with his behaviors. It gave us enormous peace of mind finally realizing this was not due to bad parenting, or a looming psychiatric diagnosis.
Again, thank you for your article! Darlene
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“Neuropsychiatric” is a suspect concept in my lexicon — if it’s neurological, i.e. physical, associated behavioral manifestations are not “psychiatric”; psychiatry deals only with metaphorical “diseases,” not real ones.
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I do agree. A reaction with a known biological mechanism shouldn’t be confused with p$ychiatry.
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Interesting to learn about PANDAS, thank you, Tricia. And I’m pleased you found the etiology of your child’s illness, your child was fortunate to have a doctor as a mother. One must wonder how many other, less fortunate children, have been misdiagnosed. Do you know what the “controversy” regarding PANDAS was? Thank you also for pointing out another big part of the problem:
“The widespread psychiatric diagnosing of children has led clinicians to underdiagnose physical disorders. Parents are told that their child has a fictitious biochemical imbalance in the brain while real medical disorders are overlooked.” It’s saddening to me that so many within the mainstream medical community have bought into the psychiatric lies so completely. Although, I know this is due to the “it’s so profitable” problem.
“Certainly, let us stop labeling kids with psychiatric disorders and giving them lifelong diagnoses and brain-altering psychiatric drugs in the name of treatment. These suffering children and their families need appropriate care, effective treatment, and compassionate understanding.” I couldn’t agree more.
Best wishes to your family, and thanks for sharing your story.
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An excellent piece that also demonstrates the difference between real medicine and psychiatric “medicine’s” pseudo-medical model.
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I would like to add a corrective at this point, which is that there are, in fact, certain real things that psychiatrists should be dealing with sometimes, if only they were trained correctly.
An example of this would be infantile paralysis, in certain manifestations. There would also be dementia. At one point in time, the only people who were making significant progress in protecting us from syphilitic brain problems or epilepsy by trying to find out what was at their heart, was psychiatry (with neurology for an assist). The problem, in other words, is not with psychiatry itself as a general field (there are actual brain diseases and disorders) but with how their practice is plagued by conditions that are simply outside their range of experience and ability to determine a cause because it lies outside medicine. Schizophrenia, so-called, is outside their domain. So is bipolar, or personality disorders, or whatever. But your daughter’s problem is exactly the sort of thing that a psychiatrist, a medical doctor dealing with the effect of disease on the mind, SHOULD be dealing with. And good for you that you stuck it out until a real medical problem was determined, rather than the elusive and chimerical “mental illnesses” that they talk about. If only they concentrated on actual diseases instead of these chimeras, there might not be such hatred of them as there is nowadays.
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The problem, in other words, is not with psychiatry itself as a general field (there are actual brain diseases and disorders) but with how their practice is plagued by conditions that are simply outside their range of experience
This is simply untrue; psychiatry as a general field is utterly without redeeming social value. “Brain diseases and disorders” are properly addressed by neurologists, i.e. medical doctors who deal with physical problems. If psychiatrists dabble in neurology they are operating outside their sphere, which is mislabeling human experience with medical metaphors and confusing people as to the difference between concrete and abstract.
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The problem is also that psychiatrists (if they aren’t in a hurry to go extinct) have to actually know enough neurology to at least be able to refer appropriate patients to the proper specialty.
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The article seems spot on, except that I would add that other causes are also ignored, including boring classrooms, bullying by other kids OR by teachers and staff, meaningless busywork, lack of free play time, requiring kids to do things they are not developmentally ready for, and more. Psychiatry also disregards nutritional or sleep problems, ongoing or prior trauma in the home environment, and social issues such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and many other issues that lead to anxiety, depression, rage or even psychosis. The DSM-III intentionally created labels that disregard cause, and these labels have removed almost any effort to figure out why kids are acting how they are, replacing meaningful analysis with empty and meaningless labels that discourage any effort to figure out what is actually going on.
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I appreciate your comment. It is deeply insightful. With the infinite number of environmental and social antagonists that have the potential to derail a healthy young person, anything less than a vigilant holistic approach to diagnosis seems ignorant. Thank you!
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‘Her sudden behavioral changes were due to an autoimmune reaction resulting in antibodies attacking the basal ganglia in her brain. ‘
Add to that anti-nmda receptor encephalitis which shows up as psychosis and usually gets a schizophrenia diagnosis. 1 in 4 die because psychiatrists – generally – are not only clueless on this, they don’t want to know.
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Mental illness is an oxymoron. Note the distinction you yourself make, Dr. Williams, between “mental” illness and brain illness.
Legitimate brain problems–like PANDAS–are physical illnesses requiring neurology. A legitimate medical science.
“Mental illnesses” are bizarre states of mind from emotional traumas. Anything psychiatry does will only make things worse in the long run, since they don’t care about the souls of those they “treat.”
Neurologists are legitimate doctors. Psychiatrists are bureaucratis and drug pushers.
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Thanks for writing this, considering that you are an MD, I wonder how many other parents, or even PCP’s missed something like this in one of their patients. This condition should be something that all PCP’s are aware of. .
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Thanks so much for your comments. That is exactly why I have written this article. This is still a little known problem in medicine. I’ve been thrilled that I have been able to reach and increase awareness to so many people through Madinamerica.com! PANDAS and other medical causes must be considered before incorrectly labeling a child.
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I am so encouraged by the broad reach of this article. I am especially thrilled that over the last couple of weeks after PANDAS/PANS Awareness Day on Oct 9, through Madinamerica.com we have been able to educate several thousand more people. Thank you. Parents, teachers, school nurses, therapists, counselors: everyone can make a difference to decrease the suffering of children incorrectly labeled and medicated.
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I’m just seeing this article and I can tell you I was Mad. My twin daughters got sick with flu-like symptoms. After a week one returned to school, the other stayed home 2 more days. She suddenly needed to sleep with 4 or 5 pillows, was afraid to swallow food, other anxiety issues. I explained to Psychiatry dept that symptoms came out of nowhere except her physical illness. Answer was the same with all. Preadolescent not wanting to eat, shes anorexic. She wasn’t concerned about her weight, clothing sz or appearance whatsoever. Didn’t matter. Anorexia. She lost weight and got fairly thin. We packed her lunch box with protein drinks, applesauce, yogurt, you name it as long as it slide down her throat. Thank god her problem resolved itself after 5 weeks or so because no MD of any kind was going to help her!
Thanks for listening.
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