Tag: OCD

On the Radio Today! A Special for PANS Awareness Day 2018

Published on by DreamingPanda2 Comments

Today is PANS Awareness Day 2018.  There’s so much I could write as someone who has lived with PANS for most of my life—even more than I’ve already said in the 100,000+ words I’ve written in previous posts on this blog.

However, I’m doing things differently this year, and instead of posting about PANS awareness, I’m going to speak on national talk radio.  I’ll be interviewed on Worcester, Massachusetts’s John DiPietro show along with some New England PANS Association board members and a PANS parent. Continue reading “On the Radio Today! A Special for PANS Awareness Day 2018” →

These 3 Myths about PANS Are Ruining Lives: A Response to Misguided Medicine

Published on by DreamingPanda13 Comments

Brain MRI

In 2012, when I developed an extreme case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder overnight, all I wanted was to get better—not to spend the next six years fighting to get treatment for a “controversial” disease.  However, when conventional therapies failed, and I rapidly declined after Strep and mono two years later, only steroids were able to help my severe psychiatric symptoms.  It was then that I realized the truth wasn’t always easy to accept: Continue reading “These 3 Myths about PANS Are Ruining Lives: A Response to Misguided Medicine” →

Why Therapy Isn’t Enough When You Have OCD & PANS/PANDAS

Published on by DreamingPanda22 Comments

This week, I made the mistake of reading the PANDAS Wikipedia page, and now I’m boiling over:

“Treatment for children suspected of PANDAS is generally the same as standard treatments for [Tourette Syndrome] and OCD. These include therapy and medications…”
Continue reading “Why Therapy Isn’t Enough When You Have OCD & PANS/PANDAS” →

Is This a Nightmare Come True?

Published on by DreamingPanda32 Comments
Sometimes, you don’t get to wake up from your nightmare…

Lately, with each day that’s gone by, I’ve slipped farther and farther into the abyss of my inflamed brain. I’m in a bona fide PANS relapse—there’s no denying it now.

As it turns out, I’ve had too much faith in my Lyme/co-infections antibiotic protocol. Continue reading “Is This a Nightmare Come True?” →

Why PANS Awareness Saves Lives

Published on by DreamingPanda10 Comments

For the last eleven years of my life, I’ve battled a debilitating yet misunderstood autoimmune disease called PANS. It’s a disorder where an infection or an environmental trigger confuses your immune system into attacking your brain. This leads to all sorts of problems like OCD, anxiety, depression, tics, involuntary movements, cognitive problems, and many more horrible things.  It affects at least 1 in 200 people, but you’ve probably never heard of it.  Many doctors haven’t, either.

Continue reading “Why PANS Awareness Saves Lives” →

It Isn’t You: Defying the Shame of My Chronic Illness

Published on by DreamingPanda2 Comments

Since the first day I became ill, shame was a mainstay in my life with PANS… Shame about irrational fears that no one understood. Shame that I felt no control over my mind or body. Shame that I couldn’t do what I once could. Shame that I lashed out at my parents and said things I never wanted. Shame that I was spending more time with doctors than friends. Shame that I’d become a different person that I hated.

Continue reading “It Isn’t You: Defying the Shame of My Chronic Illness” →

Daring to Dream Again

Published on by DreamingPanda5 Comments
Photo cred: NEPANS.org

This week, despite recently having the best few days I’ve had in several years, my OCD came roaring back, worse than it’d been since 2014. I started ticking again, too. People would say things to me, but their words made no sense. All the symptoms that I thought were gone returned to taunt me. Just as you think you have the upper hand with this disease, it can swoop in to tear you apart all over again!

Continue reading “Daring to Dream Again” →

Why I Quit Therapy

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Dissecting and discussing every meal isn’t helping

This week, I quit therapy.

Wait a minute… I was nearing hospitalization for anorexia just seven months ago, and my psychiatrist recently suggested intensive outpatient was reasonable, and now I’m not even addressing it at all?

Continue reading “Why I Quit Therapy” →

The One Thing I Hate More Than Therapy

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Some college kids stockpile liquors, I stockpile nutrition supplements!
Some college kids stockpile liquors, but I stockpile nutrition supplements!

At 93 pounds, I was so miserable and malnourished that I didn’t even know how ill I was. At the time, when I found myself sitting in an infusion chair receiving my third IVIG, I silently wondered to myself what I was doing there. How could I have PANDAS if I wasn’t “that sick”? Why was I getting such a heavy-handed treatment? But with my weight nearing the so-called “starvation” range, many of my organs weren’t working properly anymore. My psychiatrist warned that I’d be in the hospital soon.

Continue reading “The One Thing I Hate More Than Therapy” →