PANS and Autism: Asher’s Story

Case notes on PANS and Autism If you are a parent with a child with PANS or autism, this case is essential reading as it gives hope that you can change the path you are on and bring relief to your child. PANS is a horrendous condition for a child to live with and for the family. It adds a complexity to autism that becomes almost unbearable. If you are a homeopath, this is an interesting case, because it illustrates just how useful a set of acute symptoms can be in throwing into relief a great constitutional remedy.

After Merc viv 1M.

Case notes on PANS and Autism

If you are a parent with a child with PANS or autism, this case is essential reading as it gives hope that you can change the path you are on and bring relief to your child. PANS is a horrendous condition for a child to live with and for the family. It adds a complexity to autism that becomes almost unbearable.

If you are a homeopath, this is an interesting case, because it illustrates just how useful a set of acute symptoms can be in throwing into relief a great constitutional remedy.

Living with PANS and Autism

I’ve never spent an hour living with a child with PANS but I’ve spent enough time consulting with mothers of children with PANS to know it is torturous for child, parents and siblings. I also know adults with this condition, living in care homes with lives that have not progressed from the time they started with the disorder. A torturous condition and a horrible loss of normal life. And this condition can suddenly strike down apparently healthy children.

Asher’s presenting problems

Asher is a 13yo boy with ASD & mould sensitivity triggering PANS.
Leaky gut & Allergies
Depression & Anxiety [medicated with Sertraline].
He has extreme sensory difficulties.
OCD about cleanliness & often this gets strongly debilitating.
Restricted diet.
Struggling to attend special needs school for children with autism & has not been able to be in school for most of the last 2 years.
Short term memory is poor. Dyslexia.
Severe separation anxiety from mum.

Remedies:

I want to keep to 1 remedy … but Asher’s complex conditions of PANS & Autism encourages me to give remedies in place of antihistamine medications & I suspect we need to clear effects that have blocked homeopathy from working in the past.
I’m also keen to begin some work to repair his gut from the effects of repeated antibiotics.

• Constitutional remedy: Thuja [can unlock a case where the person hasn’t responded to homeopathy & Asher shows plenty of indications for this remedy].

• Followed by gut repair: morgan gaertner in an attempt to improve his gut health.

• Homeopathic steroid clear [steroid use in the past seems to depress the immune system and can prevent the person responding to homeopathy].

• Homeopathic alternative to antihistamine: Histaminum hydrochloricum.

Update

Histaminum seems to have helped with sensory hypersensitivity and it’s noticeable when the remedy is stopped.

There’s been a bit more of ‘are you ok?’ ‘I’m worried I’ve upset you’. Haven’t seen this for some time. Thinking outside of his own needs. More compassion for others. This has improved recently. Hadn’t had the capacity to take on board other people’s state.

Asher wanted to see the dentist after refusing for 18 months. He was worried about gum disease & sat through tooth cleaning even with the water pick.
He has started working toward GCSEs and is excited about this. He’s previously refused to see the Maths teacher the last few months and refused English due to his dyslexia. He came out with a glow about giving it a try! The teacher was quite tough with him and he was ok with it.

Acute

After this, Asher had an acute ear/throat infection that fitted Mercurius viv & I suggested merc 30c. [This is the acute I mentioned]. His high fever was a very good sign that his immune system is getting stronger as he hadn’t had a high fever with an acute in years.

update: he is a changed child! We gave merc viv 30c, single dose. Different child that night. 5 days later, devil child returned. Dosed 30c again and he improved. It’s been a bit up and down.

He’s less demanding and politely asking for things. I thought they had body snatched my child!

At this point we gave merc 200c.

After this he had been very up and down. Due to his mould sensitivity the family had to move house and the month was spent in preparations, which aggravated Asher considerably. Really hard changes for him to cope with, but he’s done well with the support of merc 200c at intervals. He’s managed the move very well, finally and they are starting to setting in.
He also had to adapt to all the many restrictions that Coronavirus has imposed on him and his family.

Raising the potency

I start very cautiously with a child with allergies and a child as sensitive as Asher, who was in a desperate situation with depression and anxiety. We can’t afford to see an aggravation when his symptoms are so intense and difficult for him to live with.
Because he coped with merc 200c without aggravation and we’d had to repeat it several times, we gained the confidence to give him a single dose of Merc 1M. This blog post started with his mum’s response after he had merc 1M.

We have just had the calmest, happiest time in a very long time.

Clearly, we still have some way to go, but being able to give Asher and his family some relief and some happy, adaptive days and the freedom to develop more as he should … that’s a very good start.

If you have a child suffering with intense problems associated with autism or PANS, get in touch.

Update:
We are quite some years down the line and Asher has come on in leaps and bounds. We were able to detox the mould and he is recently travelling alone to go to political meetings in a nearby city. He now sleeps alone and has been able to go to restaurants and his mum has been able to take holidays with his sister for the past 2 years.

Ongoing work. <3.

~ Wren