During the October 2 North Myrtle Beach City Council meeting, Mayor Marilyn Hatley presented a Proclamation naming October 9 as PANDAS/PANS Awareness Day in North Myrtle Beach.
Her decision to issue the Proclamation came about when Claire Calhoun, a local volunteer for the PANDAS/PANS Research Advocacy Institute (PRAI), approached the Mayor to talk with her about the need to make more people with children aware of PANDAS/PANS related illnesses and their symptoms. Claire's young son, Sam, bravely deals with symptoms of PANS.
Having learned more about PANDAS/PANS, Mayor Hatley agreed to help increase local awareness.
PANDAS stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections.
PANS stands for Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome.
A child suffering from PANDAS and/or PANS may have a sudden, dramatic change in personality displayed as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which can display as intense fear and anxiety. Accompanying symptoms may include tics, anxiety, depression, behavioral regression, deterioration in school performance, sensory sensitivities, severely restricted food intake, and more.
Both PANDAS and PANS are associated with infection-triggered autoimmune responses known as “molecular mimicry.” This occurs when our immune system mistakenly attacks normal body tissues because of the structural similarities between a particular molecule on an infectious agent and the molecules in our own body tissues.
Rheumatic Fever is one example of molecular mimicry where the immune system attacks the heart valves in some individuals after experiencing a strep infection. In PANDAS and PANS, something similar occurs where antibodies are triggered to attack a part of the brain called the Basal Ganglia, resulting in deterioration of movement, cognitive perception, habit, executive "logic based" thinking, emotions, and the endocrine system.
PANDAS requires symptom onset prior to puberty. The age cap is based on studies that indicated that 98% of 12-year-olds have immunity against strep infections and, therefore, could not develop post-streptococcal sequelae, such as PANDAS.
PANS has no age limitation, but symptoms typically begin during the grade-school years. Patients can also have their initial symptom onset during adolescence.
A conservative estimate is that there are 162,000 cases of PANDAS/PANS in the United States alone. PANDAS/PANS is likely as common as Pediatric Cancer and Pediatric Diabetes, and can seriously affect the healthy outcome of a child’s life.
For more information on PANDAS/PANS, please visit www.pandasnetwork.org.
Shown left to right in the accompanying photo are Mayor Marilyn Hatley, Sam Calhoun, Claire Calhoun.
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