About Me.

PANDAS is an acronym for pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with the streptococcal infection. The symptoms include sudden OCD behaviours along with high anxiety, tics, emotional lability, eating disorders, sensory and motor abnormalities, sleep disturbance, and regression in school performance. I experienced many signs of this disorder as a child and was later tested in adulthood for high levels of streptococcal infection. The symptoms of PANDAS significantly overlap with those of autism, but PANDAS relates to a sudden onset of psychiatric/neurological symptoms triggered by a particular pathogen.

After many years of suffering from the various debilitating features of this condition, I studied nutrition and learnt that PANS/PANDAS can be treated like other neurological conditions, as there is an autoimmune component responsible for most chronic illnesses, including autism and psychiatric disease. These disorders respond to the GAPS protocol, as they originate in the gut and can only be fully eradicated by normalising the gut flora to address the compromised immune system. Symptoms are likely to persist into adulthood if intestinal health is not supported through lifestyle modification, but I am living proof that a complete reversal, although time-consuming, is possible.