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Brain Under Attack: A Resource for Parents and Caregivers of Children with PANS, PANDAS, and Autoimmune Encephalitis
Does your child have rages, OCD, tics, aggressive behavior, prolonged tantrums and/or anxiety? Is your child exhibiting sudden behavioral changes or a developmental regression? Your child may have PANS. PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) is an umbrella term which includes diagnoses such as PANDAS, PITANDS, and Autoimmune Encephalitis--all of which describe a condition marked by concerning psychiatric and physical symptoms that often appear suddenly. Children in the US are being diagnosed with PANS at a very concerning rate. What is behind this epidemic? What makes a child vulnerable to these conditions? Most importantly, what can be done to bring to bring our kids back to good health? In this book you will • What PANS, PANDAS, and Autoimmune Encephalitis are and why so many children are being diagnosed with these conditions.• What causes PANS.• Why PANS is so commonly seen in children with autism.• How PANS is treated.• How to get to the root cause(s) of PANS.• What parents of children with PANS have done to bring their children back to good health.• What leading PANS experts have to say about the cause and treatment of PANS. Epidemic Answers is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to reestablishing vibrant health in our children and ourselves through education, empowerment and prevention.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 24, 2018
11 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Beth Lambert
3 books1 followerBeth Lambert is a former healthcare consultant and teacher. She attended Oxford University and graduated with honors from Williams College. She holds a M.A. in American Studies, with a concentration in American Healthcare, from Fairfield University.
Beth worked for a number of healthcare consulting firms in New York City including The Wilkerson Group, IBM Healthcare Consulting, and Easton Associates. She also worked in market research and business development for an e-health company. Her experience in the healthcare industry involved working with physicians, scientific and medical researchers, and corporate executives to assess products, business strategies, and emerging trends in pharmaceuticals, biotech, diagnostics, medical devices and healthcare delivery.
Beth also worked in secondary education and taught and coached at schools in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York City. As an educator, Beth worked closely with students who struggled with learning disabilities. Beth has traveled extensively throughout the United States, networking and collaborating with other educators through the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture Program.
Beth is the Executive Director of PEACE: Parents Ending Americas Childhood Epidemic, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about the epidemic of chronic illness affecting children and supporting and helping parents connect with other parents and appropriate healthcare providers. In 2009, Beth launched ANSWERS for an Epidemic (www.epidemicanswers.org ), an educational website that also houses a healthcare provider directory for parents looking for practitioners that specialize in recovering children from chronic illnesses. Beth is also the mother of two young children and is passionate about preventing chronic illnesses in children.
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Beth worked for a number of healthcare consulting firms in New York City including The Wilkerson Group, IBM Healthcare Consulting, and Easton Associates. She also worked in market research and business development for an e-health company. Her experience in the healthcare industry involved working with physicians, scientific and medical researchers, and corporate executives to assess products, business strategies, and emerging trends in pharmaceuticals, biotech, diagnostics, medical devices and healthcare delivery.
Beth also worked in secondary education and taught and coached at schools in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York City. As an educator, Beth worked closely with students who struggled with learning disabilities. Beth has traveled extensively throughout the United States, networking and collaborating with other educators through the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture Program.
Beth is the Executive Director of PEACE: Parents Ending Americas Childhood Epidemic, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about the epidemic of chronic illness affecting children and supporting and helping parents connect with other parents and appropriate healthcare providers. In 2009, Beth launched ANSWERS for an Epidemic (www.epidemicanswers.org ), an educational website that also houses a healthcare provider directory for parents looking for practitioners that specialize in recovering children from chronic illnesses. Beth is also the mother of two young children and is passionate about preventing chronic illnesses in children.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 24, 2023
I would give this book million stars if I could! I felt like someone took my two sons and documented their lives in this book. It was written professionally, yet easy to understand. I appreciated the suggestions on how to clean your environment as well as the glossary in the back. Fantastic fantastic fantastic!!!!!
January 6, 2025
Kids are dealing with a lot today. If you know a child that is dealing with sudden onset rage, aggression, OCD, tics, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts/voices/hallucinations, it is vital to consider PANS/PANDAS as a possibility. Unfortunately, doctors will most likely not suggest it as a possibility because it's just not on their radar (though this is very slowly changing).
It's hard to rate or review a book like this because very little is known about PANS/PANDAS and because the proof will only be in the testing. As months or years go on in our own treatment, I may update this review. But this book summarizes much of what is known right now and best practices for parents wading into the waters of treating this in their kids.
What is helpful about this book?
- A "terrain" approach. The authors are generally concerned about approaches to sicknesses today, including PANS/PANDAS, that treat illness with big, bad pharmaceuticals or by masking symptoms with other treatments (which both often may be needed, but may also cause more trauma to the body or "terrain"). While big treatments could be helpful, they want to understand why a person is so sick in the first place. The body should be able to heal and should not respond in such dramatic ways to illnesses, so why is the body in such a bad place and how can we promote whole person healing? This is similar to soil health in farming: you could use fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides to maybe get a quick short-term result at the expense of longterm soil health; or, you could ask why the land is not healthy in the first place and focus on healing the land. The same approach here is taken to the whole person - whether we are talking about emotional health, air, water, food, supplementation, exercise, sleep, family, relationships, EMF (noteworthy: I think every contributing provider urged families to turn off wifi completely). Western medicine is not at all rejected in this book, but just put in its place as one approach among many. "Heal the whole person" is the approach.
-While shorter summary lists of the *most* crucial contributing causes and/or changes to be considered would have been helpful, the lists helping parents turn over every stone in looking for answers is quite helpful, even if it is a bit overwhelming.
-The variety of voices is overwhelming, but again, it appears that there are many different underlying causes and helps in healing PANS/PANDAS, so I imagine that in the long run this will help.
It's hard to rate or review a book like this because very little is known about PANS/PANDAS and because the proof will only be in the testing. As months or years go on in our own treatment, I may update this review. But this book summarizes much of what is known right now and best practices for parents wading into the waters of treating this in their kids.
What is helpful about this book?
- A "terrain" approach. The authors are generally concerned about approaches to sicknesses today, including PANS/PANDAS, that treat illness with big, bad pharmaceuticals or by masking symptoms with other treatments (which both often may be needed, but may also cause more trauma to the body or "terrain"). While big treatments could be helpful, they want to understand why a person is so sick in the first place. The body should be able to heal and should not respond in such dramatic ways to illnesses, so why is the body in such a bad place and how can we promote whole person healing? This is similar to soil health in farming: you could use fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides to maybe get a quick short-term result at the expense of longterm soil health; or, you could ask why the land is not healthy in the first place and focus on healing the land. The same approach here is taken to the whole person - whether we are talking about emotional health, air, water, food, supplementation, exercise, sleep, family, relationships, EMF (noteworthy: I think every contributing provider urged families to turn off wifi completely). Western medicine is not at all rejected in this book, but just put in its place as one approach among many. "Heal the whole person" is the approach.
-While shorter summary lists of the *most* crucial contributing causes and/or changes to be considered would have been helpful, the lists helping parents turn over every stone in looking for answers is quite helpful, even if it is a bit overwhelming.
-The variety of voices is overwhelming, but again, it appears that there are many different underlying causes and helps in healing PANS/PANDAS, so I imagine that in the long run this will help.
April 21, 2022
I thought I knew pretty much all the up-to-date information about PANS, but this book had additional information I was unaware of. This is an excellent, easy to understand book for parents with kids or people with PANS/PANDAS/Autoimmune Encephalitis who are taking a more holistic/unconventional route to treating these conditions(although, conventional medicine is mentioned and is used by some providers interviewed in this book, it's not the main theme). I now have more in depth information on how these conditions affect the brain, and how to go about healing my child even more, and for those things, I am grateful.
January 19, 2019
Very helpful information.
January 5, 2019
It took me almost two years of experiencing PANS/PANDAS/AE in two of my children (which REALLY started 4 years ago... we just had no idea what was going on for the first 2.5 years), actually getting diagnosed, 5 months on Antibiotics and Antivirals, and Antifungals, followed by more bloodwork, supplements, biomedical treatments, 6 months of Homeopathy, and hours upon hours of reading other families' stories, posts, and comments in Facebook groups to learn what I could have learned in a few hours of reading this book. You will learn some hypotheses about how this condition comes about for our children. You will learn about symptoms, signs, struggles and how the medical community continues to doubt and question the diagnosis, and doesn't support families going through this. You will learn a bit about standard treatment protocols. But most importantly, you will hear from real families who have children in remission, and what they have done to get their children to that point. You will hear from medical professionals with a more holistic approach to treatment, and how they have seen success in those they treat and support through this process. Rarely, in this huge circle of parents experiencing this, do you ever hear the success stories. When children recover, parents truly want to move on and no longer spend time in the online support groups or visiting their very expensive specialists just to check in, so you don't hear a lot of success stories. I enjoyed reading these success stories very much, and continue to have new ideas and most importantly, restored HOPE about recovery. There is so much to learn when you are starting out on a path that feels mostly uncharted, as a parent of a child with Autoimmune encephalitis, PANS or PANDAS. It's wonderful to have a great starting point, and one resource for the crash course on these conditions. I sure wish this resource existed when we first started out on this incredibly challenging journey, but I'm thrilled that it does now.
January 17, 2019
A great handbook for PANS/AE parents. Did it have a some of the info I already New? Yes! However, it was a nice refresher course on those aspects, and great to have all of the info in one place. The book also had a lot of info on therapies that I did not know. In my opinion, it is a great addition to my home library.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews