These kids and their parents need special support and attention. Families like hers are even more vulnerable to infection than the general population. Sara’s text brought that situation into sharp focus for me. Virtually every one of my client families is dealing with tick-borne illness, often with accompanying PANS/PANDAS. How can a parent stop her child from licking his fingers and touching his eyes, when these symptoms–due to a medical condition–are beyond his control? So it’s time to keep him home even if there’s nothing more I can do to protect him.” Sara gave me permission to quote her text: “One of my son’s OCD is licking his fingers and rubbing his eyes. Often, obsessive compulsive disorder-OCD- is part of the picture, as are motor tics. In both cases, infections cause inflammation in the brain, resulting in behavioral changes. PANDAS stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Disorders Associated with Strep. PANS is an acronym for Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome. Like many children with PANS/PANDAS, her son is highly susceptible to any kind of infection. Sara texted me to cancel our initial session. I had planned to see her 10-year-old son by the second or third session, together with the mom. Then I got a message from “Sara,” a mom who was scheduled to come to me for an intake session. I can work with parents on the phone, but I need to see body language to work effectively with kids. In my psychotherapy practice, I struggled with whether to cancel in-person meetings with parents and children. I don’t want to get or transmit the illness and neither do my family members and my clients. Although I’ve watched a lot of news, I haven’t seen this fact addressed at all.įor me, the first issue is everybody’s personal safety. While the world deals with COVID-19-how to be safe, how to protect our citizens and essential medical workers, and the politics of it all-my thoughts go to the kids with tick-borne illness, PANS/PANDAS, neurotoxicity from mold, and other related conditions.įamilies with these conditions face daunting challenges.
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