Reply to ADHD daughter making the entire family late in the morning and I cannot stop losing it on her

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "ADHD daughter making the entire family late in the morning and I cannot stop losing it on her"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP - have you had your child screened for PANS/PANDAS? Our child was diagnosed as "autism-PDA", but much of that resolved after diagnosis and treatment for PANS/PANDAS. (I honestly think that for some kids, PDA is a missed PANS/PANDAS diagnosis - it'll be interesting to see whether they converge in the future.)

What makes me think this: 
- extremely difficult behavior, puts you at your wits' end
- normal parenting strategies (incentives, consequences, rules) completely do not work [if it's PANS/PANDAS, you cannot discipline yourself out of a fundamentally medical issue (brain inflammation) driving the behavior]
- super irritable, rage-y
- frequent meltdowns/tantrums, including physical violence
- food restrictions (ARFID-like limitations/"pickiness")
- ADHD/adhd-like behavior
- sleep difficulties

Look out for whether there are any OCD-like behaviors (does not have to be classic OCD like repetitive handwashing), tics, repeated actions or words. In our kid's case, it was initially very subtle because they would fly into panic attacks / meltdowns over seemingly small triggers that were not readily apparent as OCD (but at root they were) because they did not want to give the "real" reason (e.g., that X was causing "contamination") - they knew it didn't make sense and were embarrassed about it. Also look out for dilated pupils (one of the indicators that our kid is in a flare).

Our diagnosis was delayed because doctors expect there to be sudden onset of the OCD aspect - in our case, overall onset was (as far as we can tell) in the preschool years when kids are tantrumy anyway so the meltdowns and OCD behaviors initially blended in and then over time were attributed to general anxiety. In our case, mold seems to have been the underlying trigger.

Resources: 
- https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/pandas.html
- https://aspire.care/what-is-pans/definition/
- https://childmind.org/guide/parents-guide-to-pans-and-pandas/
- https://pandasnetwork.org/understanding-pandas/

Wishing you good luck - whatever the cause, your child sounds like a challenge and I've been there. Sympathies! [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics