friends have Strep!! No signs yet?
 

Hi, I don't post on here much so some of you may not know me. I believe my daughter has pandas and last month she had strep and her tics got REALLY bad and they are just now getting better by 75 %. She only has motor tics, eyes rolling and pushing her belly in and out.....Her friends mom just call me and she has strep and also another friend of hers who she saw both of them on SATURDAY....She is feeling really good as of now and no symptoms of getting sick yet......Should I take her to the DOC just because she was exposed? I don't think he will give her a antibiotic cause he doesn't believe in the PANDAS much but her Neuro is the one who think she does have it.......In the past she doesnt show up as strep on the quick swab test.... Do I wait till I see signs of her getting sick? I dont want her to get it and have those tics outbreak again!!

hi

I think I have seen others say that the only way to be sure is to run the strep antibody titres again. Also that PANDAS kids are more susceptible to re-infection even tho classic strep symptoms may not exhibit

but i am by no means sufficiently clued up on PANDAS to be sure of that

Gabhs
 

Hi hermom,
GABHS infection is extremely common in young school aged children so it's going to be virtually impossible to keep a child from having contact at all. The newer quick strep. tests are much more accurate than the old ones. There was a time here that our doc. would only use blood samples but that has changed.

As far as I know also, there would need to be evidence of several elevated titres for a doctor to consider PANDAS or even think about prophylactic antibiotics. Antibiotics kill bacteria so unless you feel that she's an asymptomatic carrier I'm not sure how much good an antibiotic is going to do right now.

Bear in mind also that many people who have tics or ocd will find that their symptoms exacerbate with illness or immediately after an illness. Some people find that when they have a fever though that their tics subside a little but are then followed with a flurry when the fever is gone.

If your daughter had positive titres recently with a blood test then they should be followed up. I think that needs to be done several times. I'm not really sure what she's had done although you mention that quick strep. tests always come back negative. "In the past she doesn't show up as strep on the quick swab test". What have her blood tests shown???

You mention about the Neurologist. If you're concerned then I would contact her/him about this and get as much up-to-date information.

http://intramural.nimh.nih.gov/pdn/web.htm