Child anxiety, OCD in Children: About as heart-wrenching as it comes, I’d say. Many have never heard of PANDAS, a trigger of obsessive compulsive disorder in children. Well, now there’s an Awareness Day.
About a month-and-a-half ago, I ran a piece on PANDAS: Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococci. Please take the time to read the article, as it’ll provide the details you’ll need to understand the seriousness and impact of this mysterious phenomenon.
The folks at PANDAS Network are doing their level best to draw attention to PANDAS. To that end, they’ve proclaimed October 9th PANDAS | PITAND | PANS Awareness Day. Currently, 15 states have followed suit. How cool is that?
Oh, we have the PANDAS acronym covered. For the record…
PITAND (Pediatric Infection-Triggered Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders)
PANS (Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome)
I encourage you to click the links I’ve provided so you can learn more about the disorders and the mission. Well worth your time, and you just never know when it may hit close to home…
This is good information to pass on to the school nurses I deal with. Granted it is rare, but school nurses are some of the smartest folks I know. They see all of the children in a given school, and they deal with every situation that even “sniffs” of medical within that school for the staff and the students. I’m also going to forward the links to our state Office of School Health because I know they will include it in the next school based health clinic newsletter. Rare does not mean it does not show up… and that is what people forget. Thank you for passing on the information about the awareness day.
It is good info, isn’t it, Patricia (not having anything to do with my posting it)? I’m always amazed at how many excellent advocacy groups there are out and about – and how hard they work at furthering their cause. This sure is a good one! Glad you’re passing on the info to your state’s Office of School Health. Hope they take it seriously. And, you know, these phenomena may not be so rare. ‘Course many physicians may not readily acknowledge them. No surprise there. Thank you, as always, for your participation – and active stance(s)…
Bill