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Forum -> Children's Health
Subclinical strep - please share what you know!



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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 1:42 am
Ds age 6 has behavioral difficulties and when it gets really bad, we take him for a throat culture and very often it is positive, with no physical symptoms.

I saw on another thread someone mentioned subclinical strep. Is that what this is? What is there to do about it? Any way to prevent it from constantly recurring?

Please share what you know about this and what can be done!
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tweety1




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 8:28 am
I don't know much abt it, but I do know that I was once complaining to a sibling that ds started acting nutty in a [crazy] way. Crazy troubles like so not my kid. She then told me that when her kids start acting like that she knows they have strept. I took ds to the Dr and he had strept.
I think it's more that a symptom for strept can come out in a behavioral way. I would also check for pandas.
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amother
Bronze


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 8:33 am
tweety1 wrote:
I don't know much abt it, but I do know that I was once complaining to a sibling that ds started acting nutty in a [crazy] way. Crazy troubles like so not my kid. She then told me that when her kids start acting like that she knows they have strept. I took ds to the Dr and he had strept.
I think it's more that a symptom for strept can come out in a behavioral way. I would also check for pandas.

how do u check for pandas? there's a blood test?
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 10:55 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Ds age 6 has behavioral difficulties and when it gets really bad, we take him for a throat culture and very often it is positive, with no physical symptoms.

I saw on another thread someone mentioned subclinical strep. Is that what this is? What is there to do about it? Any way to prevent it from constantly recurring?

Please share what you know about this and what can be done!
im the one who mentioned this. Behavioral symptoms caused by strep is more commonly known as pandas. The hypothesis it is based on is that it’s a misdirected immune response. Instead of attacking the strep bacteria, the immune system attacks parts of the brain, causing inflammation in that area resulting in the neuropsych behaviors we know as pandas. The reason a lot of kids with this phenomenon have no typical sick symptoms is what experts call an alternate fever response. The fever with an infection is a big part of the immune response, but with kids like this the antibodies are being sent to the brain instead, so you won’t see the symptoms you typically associate with illness, which is actually usually the immune response to that illness. Because kids like this don’t have typical sick symptoms they can have low level lingering infections going on for a long time untreated. This would be known as sub clinical or subacute infection. FWIW, someone can have a low level infection like that even without neuro symptoms. It can be a sign of immune deficiency. Basically, they have low levels of pathogens circulating or even colonizing but the immune system is not picking up on it, or only responding weakly. Sometimes this weak and ineffective but consistent immune response will tip over into autoimmunity. In a nutshell, immune dysregulation.

The treatment is multi pronged. Treat the infections for a long time so you know you got rid of all of it. Take down the inflammatory cytokine cascade that the pathogens feed off of. And fix the underlying immune dysregulation so that it doesn’t over react and under react, but react appropriately.
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 11:01 am
So what is the solution to this?
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 11:03 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
So what is the solution to this?
I edited my post to add treatment in a nutshell. Typically long term antibiotics are used to knock out the chronic infection and prevent reinfection . Sometimes tonsils and adenoids removed because they harbor a ton of resistant strep. Then ivig or ldn to regulate the mistaken immune response
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amother
Papaya


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 11:27 am
amother [ Hotpink ] wrote:
I edited my post to add treatment in a nutshell. Typically long term antibiotics are used to knock out the chronic infection and prevent reinfection . Sometimes tonsils and adenoids removed because they harbor a ton of resistant strep. Then ivig or ldn to regulate the mistaken immune response


Ivig is a pretty serious thing to do and recommend so offhanded.
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tweety1




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 11:54 am
amother [ Bronze ] wrote:
how do u check for pandas? there's a blood test?

Yes. A blood test. But find a Dr that believes in pandas. Not all pediatricians believe in it. Some think it's psychological and some think it's the hype.
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 12:08 pm
amother [ Papaya ] wrote:
Ivig is a pretty serious thing to do and recommend so offhanded.
im not recommending it personally but it’s the gold standard for pandas and other immune encephalopathies. I agree that if symptoms are mild one should exhaust other options first. We personally take a more holistic approach, working at the gut health angle etc
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 12:09 pm
tweety1 wrote:
Yes. A blood test. But find a Dr that believes in pandas. Not all pediatricians believe in it. Some think it's psychological and some think it's the hype.
pandas is a clinical diagnosis. No blood test can rule it in or out. That is why you need an experienced clinician. But bloodwork can give clues.
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amother
Papaya


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 2:02 pm
amother [ Hotpink ] wrote:
im not recommending it personally but it’s the gold standard for pandas and other immune encephalopathies. I agree that if symptoms are mild one should exhaust other options first. We personally take a more holistic approach, working at the gut health angle etc

I would like to hear more about the gut health angle. My ds's pediatrician suspects my son has a mild case of pandas. After he gets off antibiotics I want to build his immune system and overall health so he shouldn't get sick in the first place. This is a child with allergies so already his immune system isn't working properly.
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 2:13 pm
amother [ Papaya ] wrote:
I would like to hear more about the gut health angle. My ds's pediatrician suspects my son has a mild case of pandas. After he gets off antibiotics I want to build his immune system and overall health so he shouldn't get sick in the first place. This is a child with allergies so already his immune system isn't working properly.
diet: at minimum child should be gluten, dairy, soy and corn free, minimal sugar, no food dyes. Other diets to look into for gut and brain health are paleo, wahls protocol, AIP, gaps, Scd, feingold. We also do digestive enzymes half hour before meals, lots of probiotics. Liver and bile support because gut health really begins in the liver. Minerals and b vitamins for liver, bile and hydrochloric acid production. Functional medicine drs can run specialized stool testing to detect bacterial or fungal overgrowth in the gut, parasitic infections etc, which will all need to be addressed. This is all much simpler said than done :-/ but pandas is a beast and healing is peeling away the layers and layers of imbalances that lead to autoimmunity.

ETA: ok now for more realistic advice: get your kid off gluten and dairy. Minimize sugar and food dyes. Add in digestive enzymes and probiotics, fermented foods if possible. Look into LDN for immunomodulation (teaching the immune system not to over react or under react). If you think your kid is yeasty, treat the yeast.
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amother
Cerise


 

Post Mon, Jul 06 2020, 2:21 pm
You need a really good doctor for this. And you need to be 100% open with them about all of the symptoms or you won't get the right protocol.

Right now we're doing 3weeks of antibiotics, fermented foods, fiber foods, b12 foods, vitamin D, all recommended by our pediatrician to attack the strep from various angles and get the numbers to go down. once we finish the abx our pediatrician recommended blisK12 for three months to build up the good bacteria in my child's mouth so that the strep does not come back since the symptoms get worse and worse every time. Not to scare you but If you don't fix it on time the situation can get out of control and unfixable.
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