Hi again,
I'm so glad to hear you had such a great day at the beach!

Just wanted to show you some information about Scarlet Fever. I know that is in the past now, but if she did have Scarlet Fever and her tics started after that, it's important that the doctor treating her now knows about the untreated Scarlet Fever from a few years ago. Not everyone who has a GABHS infection will go on to have problems or complications such as described below, but it's important to know about it.

I hope all goes well with going back to school. That must be only a few weeks or so away now, is it? I'm in Australia and our school year is different. Does your daughter have any other conditions as well as her tics, or does she only have the tics?

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/e...cle/000974.htm
This is the condition that my son was diagnosed with at age 5. Later at age 10 it was changed to Tourette's Syndrome and some other things. He'd had an untreated strep throat and then some weeks later developed some unusual movements of the body. It's all very complicated and a long story, but eventually they checked his heart and took him off long-term antibiotics because his heart was fine. In his case, they had him taking antibiotics to prevent future episodes of GABHS so that he would not get Rheumatic Fever again. It wasn't actually to stop the movements/chorea, it was to prevent further episodes of RF.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/e...cle/001358.htm
Sydenham's Chorea (St Vitus Dance)

EDITED TO ADD: hermom, I'm not posting this info. to scare you. That would be the very last thing I want. It's highly likely that the info. about the scarlet fever and the Chorea has nothing to do with your daughter's tics. I'm just posting it because of her history with the scarlet fever and the onset timing of the tics. It's just something that not many people are aware of in this day and age with the medical care we are all able to get. Unfortuntely, sometimes things are missed. I'm just pointing this out for that reason, as I said, not to frighten you or anything. If you've read up on Tics then you'd know immediately if any of this other info. fits or not, but as I said earlier, it is worth mentioning the untreated scarlet fever to her present doctor if she/he is not aware of it, that's all.

http://www.wemove.org/syd/
SC info from WeMove

hermom and Lara,
Thanks for all that good info. I just wanted to add also, as I mentioned, my son once had an exacerbation of eye blink and roll last year when coincidentally he said he had a sore throat and when we saw the doctor he said strep throat and gave amoxy. The tics and his very hyper behavior decreased dramatically within two days on it. He had since been tested for the antibody titers twice about six months apart and both came back negative. So I'm just mentioning this because even though definitive Pandas connection may not be obvious, I wonder if something infection related in the body still has a great effect on tics and OCD (if a person is prone to that). I still think you have to get to the root of what causes the symptoms and that seems to be a compromised immune system. So possibly strengthening that will make the body less vulnerable to such infections and thus the tics at those times.

Now, one other thing, my son does not frequently get the strep (hardly ever) so it harder to watch for the connection. The test seems to show no, so what else to do, you know? If a child gets that sort of thing frequently, and you see the symptoms rise, well, then you have to be the detective and go from there. But just the same, I say it is still necessary to strenghten and balance the body, that seems to be something that helps many.

Faith