Originally published August 7 2005
Eating disorders require support to overcome
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Researchers have found that anorexics who have emotional support can overcome their eating disorder easier.
Anorexia nervosa is a devastating illness, usually first emerging at about your granddaughter's age, though increasingly younger girls are being diagnosed with this illness.
PANDAS (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections) is a still controversial theory linking childhood tics, Tourette's syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder to the body's immune response to certain "strep" infections.
The child needs therapy to discover that her identity goes beyond her achievements and how thin she is and to accept that she does not have to deprive herself nor deserves to die.
Parents will need support as the child predictably protests and blames them for the help she desperately needs to survive and recover.
They'll also need help to battle insurance companies that won't pay for hospitalization until the child is medically unstable, even though this prolongs her illness and suffering, increases the risk of irreversible damage to her body and jeopardizes her chances for recovery.
It is hard to see how both the hypersensitivity and the strep infection could have led to Tourette's syndrome in your child's case, since the hypersensitivity was present before the infection.
We could speculate that your child's earlier "differences" were the sign of vulnerability to neurological consequences to the strep infection, but the two might just as readily be unrelated.
As for PANDAS, scientific debate continues as to whether the body's immune response to strep infections can sometimes lead to a mistaken attack on the part of the brain affected by Tourette's syndrome.
It has long been known, though, that immune system reactions to certain strep infections can lead to another neurologic illness -- Sydenham's chorea -- also a movement disorder.
Dr. Brazelton heads the Brazelton Touchpoints Project, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world.
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