July 2, 2019
PANDAS on Beacon Hill
Parents push for coverage, awareness of rare syndrome. Local families grappling with a rare and elusive syndrome will make the case for greater acknowledgement and support at the State House...
June 28, 2019
What Parents Should Know About Infections and Mental Health
After infections, some children are misdiagnosed with mental health conditions. A reality of trauma and many other mental health problems is the complexity of causes. This means that sustainable...
June 27, 2019
Study Links Eating Disorders to Childhood Infections
Results of the population-based study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, found that infections that required hospitalization or treatment with anti-infective medications, such as antibiotics, antifungals...
May 14, 2019
How strep throat can lead to scary OCD symptoms in kids
Two years ago, Craig and Erica Mills packed up the family minivan and headed north from Toronto to a campground in Tobermory, Ont. Annual camping trips were loved by their three young sons—two days...
April 18, 2019
Families Of Children With PANDAS Disorder Still Struggling To Get Insurance Coverage
In 2017, then-Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law what was known as Charlie’s Law that required insurance companies to cover treatment costs for certain auto immune diseases in children. One...
March 23, 2019
Report: Teen’s schizophrenia-like symptoms were caused by cat-scratch disease
A teenage boy is once again happy and healthy after an 18-month long battle to discover what was wrong with him. A report published in the Journal of Central Nervous System Disease on Monday detailed...
March 15, 2019
A family’s fight for their son en route to NCAA tournament history
IT SEEMED so unremarkable at first, something only a mother would notice. Instead of running to the sink like most middle schoolers and washing his hands as fast as he could, 13-year-old Connor...
February 6, 2019
We’re finally understanding why some kids get strep throat over and over again
In rare cases, a strep infection can cause kids to experience extreme OCD behaviours, a condition called PANDAS. Many doctors don't know it exists. Two years ago, Craig and Erica Mills packed up...
February 1, 2019
November Clinical Conversation: Understanding PANS and PANDAS
A child is happy and easygoing one day, then literally overnight refuses to eat, sleep alone, or go to school. He or she may have tics, difficulty sleeping and headaches. The sudden, dramatic onset...
January 1, 2019
Is it PANDAS?
There’s nothing black and white about this mysterious and controversial diagnosis. If your child suffers sudden mental health problems following a case of strep throat, this autoimmune condition...
October 9, 2018
Woman shares harrowing experience of son’s erratic behaviour after strep
One afternoon in the winter of 2017, Corie Entrop’s 10-year-old son came home from school and began pulling out his hair. When the Alberta mother pleaded with him to tell her why he was doing it,...
September 25, 2018
More than strep: PANDAS causes violent behavior in some children
It’s an infection so common just about every child gets it at one point in his or her life. A strep infection in kids can usually cause a sore throat, fever, headache and fatigue but some parents...
In August of 2014 our daughter, Leah, was 6 years old. We had just returned home from a month-long trip to Illinois to visit family. When we arrived home in Arizona, she suddenly (overnight) developed a fear of vomit.