CLINICIAN TESTIMONIALS
Patient Case: A 17-year-old with rage attacks, extreme weight loss and OCD
Dr. Gary Kaplan’s Patient Case
The parents have their kid back. He’s back attending school. He got his GED. He was not able to finish high school because he was so sick. But he went back and got his GED. Now, he’s at a community college. And he’s back to being his normal, sweet self.
WATCH VIDEO: DR. KAPLAN’S PATIENT CASE
Dr. Gary Kaplan, DO:
I had one patient who I treated. He was about 17 years old. He had been healthy, a great student in school. He was big on sports. And almost overnight, as the father said, it was like somebody threw a switch.
This kid changed dramatically. He's having rage attacks. Now, understand that this kid is the sweetest, most loving, wonderful kid. But he's having rage attacks. Rage attacks, where he has done thousands and thousands of dollars in damage to the house. Interestingly, he never attacks a person but he's put his fist through walls. He’s torn plate glass windows off. He's done a lot of damage to the house.
He also developed an eating disorder and body dysmorphia. He starts picking at his body. He’s starting to lose weight. He loses 10 lbs. He loses 20 lbs. He loses 30 lbs.
At that point, his pediatrician had decided that the problem was obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphia. So, he is hospitalized, psychiatrically.
And nothing is working. He comes to see me about 6 to 8 months later. And as I’m taking the history, I’m noticing very discreet episodes, these rage attacks, these issues where he can't walk for periods of time, this regressive behavior.
So, I thought this sounds more like seizure-type events. We see this in the PANS and PANDAS population. He’s older. But let's find out what's going on.
In checking him, we found that he actually had Lyme disease, Bartonella and Babesia. So, he had three bugs sitting in him.
But on the Cunningham Panel™, he's off the charts. The dopamine receptors are off. The CaMKinase is off.
So, we’ve got a real-time understanding of an autoimmune process going on, at the same time that we have these very serious infections.
We’ve treated him for the infections successfully. We are still addressing the autoimmune component of it with regular IVIG treatments.
However, the parents have their kid back. He's back attending school. He got his GED. He was not able to finish high school because he was so sick. But he went back and got his GED. Now, he’s at a community college. And he’s back to being his normal, sweet self.
So, this is a success story. And we see a lot of people like this. But we also see it in the adults. Now, adults don’t tend to show up quite as dramatically. But we'll see brain fog, focus and concentration issues, difficulty with remembering anything, as well as sleep disorders and chronic fatigue and generalized pain.
And when you see that kind of a big picture, inevitably you're dealing with an inflammatory process that involves both the innate and the acquired immune system.
Now, what’s ticking it off? We have to figure that out, as well. So, it's a matter of putting this whole picture together.
LEARN MORE: AUTOIMMUNE NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS
PANS/PANDAS Overview
PANDAS & PANS Patient Stories
