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Find a therapist that can help with PANDAS symptoms.

We can revolutionize how we treat mental illness by using medical and mental health interventions.

Immune mediated conditions, such as PANS/PANDAS, offer a road map for healing.

Things we can’t explain or understand, we often separate. Mental illness is no different.

In Europe, people started separating those with mental illness from those with medical illness in the Middle Ages, believing they had demonic possession; by the 1700s, many countries had “lunatic asylums,” where those with mental illness could be treated in isolation. Today, we've reached the point where we have separate systems, billing practices, and diagnostic manuals for each.

Growing up in a family that passed down mental illness the way others did cancer, I accepted this separation. My family members understood that some of us would inherit the “mental illness gene.” Unlike cancer, there would be no cure. Medication, therapy, and grit would manage symptoms for the rest of the unlucky person’s life.

When my children were diagnosed with an immune-mediated condition, this separation dissolved. Their healing, and mine following theirs, illuminated a bridge connecting the two systems and revealing another path—one offering relief from suffering and true healing.

Mental Health Is Medical

Both of my children presented with a myriad of mental health issues in early childhood: obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), eating restriction, ADHD, sensory issues, irrational fears, panic attacks, rage, mood liability, even suicidality,

For six years, I used every tool in my personal and professional mental health toolbox to help them stabilize, yet their symptoms only increased in severity. I began to worry I might lose one to suicide.

Another mother mentioned a condition I knew nothing about: PANS/PANDAS (pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome/pediatric autoimmune disorder associated with strep). These are illnesses triggered by infection (e.g., strep throat, pneumonia, flu) or non-infectious (e.g., environmental, metabolic) factors, causing the onset of mental health symptoms.

I was skeptical. As a social worker, I had been trained to rule out medical causes of mental health, per the DSM-5-TR, but not this. Out of desperation, I had them evaluated.

Both children met the clinical criteria for PANS/PANDAS. Within two weeks of treatment (antibiotics and anti-inflammatories), we saw signs of profound healing. Their........

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