20: A Natural Approach to PANS / PANDAS with Dr. Scott Antoine

Dr. Scott Antoine is a board-certified physician, author, speaker, and legislative advocate. In this episode, he discusses PANS and PANDAS and how one can support their child with this neuropsychiatric disorder as well as prevent it.

Dr. Scott explains what PANS and PANDAS is, as well as how he got introduced to the disorder through his daughter's diagnosis, the methods used to diagnose this disorder, and more. We also discuss the Cunningham Panel and its effectiveness toward PANDAS. Tune in to learn how to support your child using functional medicine and approaches.

When a child is acting out, caregivers may think it is typical child-like behavior. However, that’s not always the case. There may be an infection that changes the child’s neurological pathways and they start behaving differently. It’s very important to identify the signs of peculiar behavior. It may be that the child may have PANS or PANDAS or another neuropsychiatric disorder.

 

Key Takeaways:

[4:26] What is PANS or PANDAS and how Scott became involved 

[8:24] Difference in symptoms between PANS and PANDAS

[13:27] The tests used to diagnose PANS or PANDAS

[17:53] The Cunningham Panel

[25:55] How to treat these kids with PANS or PANDAS

 

 

How To Connect With Dr. Scott:

Website: https://fullyfunctional.com/

IG: @thepandasdocs

Facebook: Healing PANS and PANDAS

 

 

Memorable Quotes:

 

• “PANDAS is Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Strep infection. These kids will get an infection with strep and then, afterward, sometimes months afterward, will have severe sudden onset OCD.”
• “PANS can be from other infections. It can be from toxins in the environment, so man made toxins or mycotoxins from mold exposure; there’s a big tie-in. Or it can be from infections. So PANDAS is from stress, and it is actually a subtype from PANS.”
•  “Very interestingly, the original papers written in 2014 have a little tiny sentence in there that said, ‘Stress may be an initiator of a flare of PANS in some children.’”
  
• “The simple answer is 0, none… it’s a clinical diagnosis meaning there are signs and symptoms… There’s just a list. It’s a list of things and in the case of PANS or PANDAS, it’s the sudden onset of severe OCD or restrictive eating or both, plus seven other categories.”
• “The Cunningham Panel, we’ve known for years that you can actually measure the antibodies to the brain tissue, they’re called anti-neuralgic antibodies. The Cunningham Panel actually tests for about 4 of those anti-neuralgic antibodies.”
• “The first thing we do is identify exactly what’s going on clinically and talk to the parents… it really is an amazing feeling for them to feel like someone is actually listening to them and not just telling them your child has diagnosis X and here is the medication for it.”
• “The 2nd step is reducing things that negatively impact their health, so that’s where we start with diet, we start with stress reduction, reducing sympathetic overdrive, things like that.”

 

 

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