The little girl with PANDAS problem

Twelve-year-old Lauren Johnson (picture above) of Virginia sneezed 12,000 times a day the whole year round! A week ago, she was finally diagnosed with a relatively unknown affliction called PANDAS or Paediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus.

Child neurologist Rosario Trifiletti who is treating Lauren, says PANDAS symptoms include:
• Cognitive inflexibility, difficult to reason with, as if stuck on an idea
• Obsessive/repetitive/compulsive argumentative behaviour
• TICS (repetitive vocalisations of body movements)
• Tourettes Syndrome
• Attention deficits and oppositional/defiant behaviours.

Lauren was placed on antibiotics and has improved considerably, says Dr Trifiletti. But she is at risk of getting this again, so she would probably receive a low dose of antibiotics for a long period of time.

PANDAS was only discovered 13 years ago after lots of trial and error. Dr Trifiletti says there could be millions of kids suffering from PANDAS, but only several thousand have been diagnosed.

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