The Intersection of Mental Health and the Immune System – Exploring new avenues of diagnosis and treatment in mental health care.
By: Sheilah M. Gauch
Sheilah hits it out of the park once again.
We know that too many doctors and therapists aren’t even coming close to ruling out medical issues when they see what looks like only mental health issues. And as Sheilah says, it would be much better if providers started with “ruling in” medical problems. We must stop acting like the brain is a separate entity from the rest of our body.
As a mom to a kiddo with Autism, I was fortunate enough to begin our Autism journey with a bunch of friends and colleagues who truly understood that you had to rule in medical conditions that were comorbid to his Autism. We were definitely bucking the system with that idea back in 2006. It was very common to go to a doctor with your kiddo who was having seizures or severe G.I. issues, only to have the doctor say, “Oh, it’s just the Autism,” and then refuse to treat our children medically. But when we found doctors that would treat their serious medical issues, and not surprisingly to any of us, a lot of their Autism symptoms became more manageable. So when PANS PANDAS came into our lives, we were fortunate to have doctors who did “rule medical in.” Of course, that doesn’t mean that my other son, my “neurotypical” son, was diagnosed in anything close to a reasonable timeframe. Sheila is right; we do feel lucky even if a diagnosis came 10 years after onset. Without it, our story would indeed be tragic.
But the rest of the world still has a long way to catch up, even with all of the advancements in this field brought to us by the courtesy of COVID and its relationship to neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms. We know we are missing children and adults with this disorder. There isn’t any doubt about this whatsoever. Our medical community needs to do better by them. PANS/PANDAS is hardly the only medical condition to see if we can rule in; countless other medical conditions look like a psychiatric disorder at first glance. There’s no time to wait. There’s no reason to wait. We have so much information right now; we have enough to start RULING IN.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-whole-child/202402/the-intersection-of-mental-health-and-the-immune-system
Gabriella True
