4 year old kicked out

amother

Wine

Tue, Feb 06 2024, 3:42 pm

amother Wine wrote:

Please don't give your child a ton of motrin and benedryl without speaking to a doctor! These really do not come across as pandas symptoms at all. Benedryl is also known to cause irritability in children- may make your situation a lot worse.

As a clinician, I can tell you the most common presentation of pandas involves rapid onset of extreme anxiety (especially separation anxiety) and ocd symptoms. This doesn't sound like what you are dealing with. I wouldn't go down this rabbit hole unless you've exhausted other more likely scenarios especially if you have a known family history of adhd.

amother

Thistle

Tue, Feb 06 2024, 6:21 pm

amother Wine wrote:

As a parent of 2 children with pandas and in support groups with thousands more parents I will tell you that anxiety and ocd can be easy to miss in children. It often shows up as intrusive thoughts. Cognitive Rigidity which leads to meltdowns when the internal script isn't followed. What looks like Impulsive behaviors are often actually COMpulsive behaviors. Some kids hide their anxiety really well. Some parents think it's just a phase or developmental.

Ad for sudden onset, OP did say her son used to be chilled and well behaved and all thus started sukkos time, but research out of the Stanford pandas clinic shows that pandas treatment can help even if there was no sudden dramatic overnight onset

Lastly, and I know all the adhd parents will hate me for saying this, but pandas and adhd are not mutually exclusive diagnoses. One is a set of symptoms, one is a cause. There are many different causes for adhd symptoms, but there is always a cause, and "genetic" is just a predisposition, not a life sentence. So even if OP goes the psych route and her son gets an adhd diagnosis, that in no way negates the fact that pandas may be the cause of his symptoms.

amother

Wine

Tue, Feb 06 2024, 7:13 pm

amother Thistle wrote:

PP- clinician. Agree with all of this. I just would just recommend getting a good evaluation- not popping a bunch of advil and benedryl and begging the pediatrician for more blood tests. Yes- any disorder can be co-morbid with PANDAS. That being said- I think it often makes sense to start with likely suspects (ie adhd). Totally agree with what a previous poster said about preschool teachers having different levels of tolerance for different behaviors. He may have exhibited a lot of adhd behaviors last year that his teacher rolled with especially since he was little. Now, with bigger expectations (being older) and perhaps a less tolerant teacher- he may be absorbing that stress, leading to negative behaviors at home. Go to a developmental clinic and get a good evaluation from an experienced clinician.

WhatFor

Tue, Feb 06 2024, 7:53 pm

amother Thistle wrote:

Lastly, and I know all the adhd parents will hate me for saying this, but pandas and adhd are not mutually exclusive diagnoses. One is a set of symptoms, one is a cause. There are many different causes for adhd symptoms, but there is always a cause, and "genetic" is just a predisposition, not a life sentence. So even if OP goes the psych route and her son gets an adhd diagnosis, that in no way negates the fact that pandas may be the cause of his symptoms.

I don't know why ADHD parents should hate you for saying that. If you watch that YouTube video "30 essential ideas every parent should know about ADHD" by Russell Barkley (link below), this leading ADHD psychiatrist says that in a small percentage of cases, ADHD can be caused by an illness. I don't think it ultimately changes the prognosis (I assume unless the issue is caught early before it causes the changes to the brain), but people shouldn't disregard it either. I also suspect that even in those cases, it might also be a genetic predisposition in addition to the illness that brings it on.

OP, I haven't read through the entire thread, but I was also struck by your comment that he has no issue focusing on things, because it's such a common myth that it means they don't have ADHD. The video playlist below is such a great explanation of ADHD (it's also by a renowned ADHD psychiatrist). It's very general, so some might not apply to your kid who is diagnosed or to your 4 year old, but in the big picture, it's one of the best explainers I've seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....s-cvY

Just two other things: one was that because it's often genetic, the fact that you already have a child with ADHD makes it seem worthwhile to test, if you suspect it could be.

The only odd thing to me was that you think it's all a change of behavior. Ime, that's less typical for ADHD. I don't know how it is across the world, but I always thought based on my own experience that usually it's a steady experience of certain behaviors, even if subtle. These behaviors might (or might not) be less of a problem when a kid is still at home with you, and then you might notice it becoming more of an issue as life places more demands on them (as with school or friendships), but a total change with no external precipitating factors is weird to me. Unless you're just not connecting the change to precipitating factors, like did this start when he started school? But if nothing really changed and his behavior suddenly radically did, I'd also be looking at bloods and medical causes.

amother

Tue, Feb 20 2024, 5:13 pm

I just wanted to come back with a quick update, thank you and question (the latter 2 specifically for starflower and thistle)

First of all, thank you so so much for your advice. I spoke to my Dr and ended up putting him on a 2 week regimen of anti-biotics (with probiotics). It took almost a week but since then he's been a different child. His Morah is floored by the difference! Your advice helped me get my baby back!!
The last dose is supposed to be tomorrow/Thursday and I have an appointment with my dr to discuss on Thurs. Just curious from your experiences if you continued a low dose of anti biotics or if the original regimen was enough

Thank you Thank you