The whole point of reading the latest health news these days seems to be about the sensational connections scientists make between the worst diseases, and innocent things in your life that you just don't expect to have an effect on your health. One day you read about how you can get a miscarriage from using canned food, because they apply a coating of rust retardant on the insides of cans; and then you read about how they believe children get autism from the chemicals in food colors. Well, in keeping with the spirit of that fine line of startling disclosures, here's a new one. Is it ever possible that if your child catches a strep throat infection, that it can lead him to problems like the OCD children can develop, or annoying tics?
That was just a rhetorical question; because scientists now are somewhat positive about the connection, and even have a fancy (aka complicated) name for it - here goes - Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infection - Pandas for short. So what is it that they're going on about? Here's the lowdown. In about one in four children who suddenly seem to have OCD when they were getting along just fine before, a strep throat earlier in the year may be behind it. You could also make the connection if you see low-level OCD children suddenly have a flare up after a strep throat infection. What happens is, when a child gets a strep throat, his body's immune cells go and attack a certain part of the brain called the basal ganglia. Apparently to immune cells, it's hard to tell any difference between the two. It's a good thing though that it doesn't happen in all children.
The reason it's difficult to make the connection in most cases is that the OCD problem only occurs months after the strep throat; it's very difficult to ever remember the minor infection all that time ago. It's a good thing though that this doesn't happen in all children, and it only happens in childhood. You can somewhat tell the difference between real and induced OCD by how quickly you see the symptoms develop. In a regular case of OCD, the symptoms rise slowly, visibly, and gradually - over months or years. In Pandas OCD, it just comes up all of a sudden. And you can tell by some other co-existent symptoms as well. The child has tics, nightmares, and becomes difficult to handle. Math class at school may no longer be easily managed, and school itself becomes a problem because the child finds it difficult to stay away from his parents. So if you have a strong suspicion looking at your child that he may be one of the Pandas OCD children. What do you do next?
Treatment is simple enough with antibiotics aimed at a regular strep throat infection. Repeated courses may help additionally. Sometimes a kind of blood purification process may be needed, to remove all the antibodies from the child's body. This still won't completely cure the child, and some regular OCD medication may be needed. But all of this comes after we actually diagnose the child properly; and that may be difficult as most doctors are not really aware of this connection. A good way to go about it would be to contact an OCD foundation in your area, and ask for a proper expert in your part of the country.