This week, I had a catch-up with Liz Earle or her Friday Five Podcast! Has your child or teen (or even yourself!) developed anxiety, tics, OCD, brain fog, dizziness, fatigue or skewed eating patterns since having a streptococcus infection or Covid? If so, you might want to investigate whether this is a misdirected autoimmune neuro-inflammatory response to the infection.
What do I mean? Essentially instead of fighting the infection in the “normal way”, the immune system gets muddled and attacks the brain, which can lead to neuro inflammation, and in turn alters a person’s neurological and mental state.
Thankfully, much can be done to dampen down this cytokine storm, and I had a wonderful chat with Liz Earle all about this on her podcast
Listen to it here:
The key take home tips from our conversation are:
- Nourish the gut microbiome with a good quality probiotic and lots of rainbow foods
- Try anti-inflammatory turmeric or start enjoying turmeric lattes
- Drink green tea
- Resveratrol, which is rich in red grape skins can dial down inflammation and is usually found in combination with other neuroprotective and immune supplements
- Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) – is key for dampening down mast cells and overall neuroinflammation
- Try Lions Mane and Bacopa to help with brain fog
A big shout out and thanks goes to Liz Earle, as well as to PANS PANDAS UK and Children’s e-Hospital, for all their tireless work in raising awareness and helping so many kids with these awful neuro-inflammatory conditions.
Lucinda Recommends
This is beyond interesting. My 12 year old daughter who had asymptomatic covid in November and only lost her sense of smell has now developed a nasty taste and smell. She can barely enjoy any foods, from someone who is a great eater and she is desperate for a proper meal again but finds it hard to enjoy most foods. She is on teen multi vitamins, zinc, omega and magnesium. No idea what else to do. It’s so sad. She is a patient of nature docs
Hi Charlotte – sorry to hear this – do speak to your practitioner about this as she may well be able to turn things around.
Hi Lucinda. Are there any tests which can show PANS/PANDAS? Thank you.
Hi Emese – ask your GP for the following antibody blood tests: Streptolysin O Titre (ASOT) and streptococcal anti-DNase B (ADB) – we can organise these too for you privately if needed.