Wednesday, January 20, 2016

PANS / PANDAS ?

Okay....long time! New paradigm shift going on over here...so i've decided to start a "series" on health issues... this first one I will be sharing is PANS/PANDAS. Something many mainstream Drs. just have no real grip on. Many parents are at a loss of what is happening with their children...and I am sure health can sometimes take a back burner position when we are all bombarded with the typical things in life, like work, bills, after school activities etc. Its usually not until someone's health becomes so bad that it takes immediate action and attention. So if you are here...most likely this "health" issue has reared its nasty little head and you are desperate for information and ultimately some sort of cure. I just need to say, that priorities will need to be reorganized...and mind sets will have to change. If you look up to MD's like Gods with the all knowing answers...then that needs to change...yes there are some diamonds in the rough...but very rare!

A dear friend of mine is desperate...her and her four children have all of the symptoms and she has been having sleepless nights as to why...she finally made the connection that the gut and brain have a symbiotic relationship...well she stumbled upon this research when desperately trying to find ways to help her children sleep...this began her journey down the rabbit hole...

What is PANS / PANDAS and what are the symptoms?

I. An abrupt, acute, dramatic onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder or severely restricted food intake

Parents describe the day of onset as the day they “lost” their child. Typically the change is dramatic, with symptoms developing within a 24- to 48-hour period. The OCD symptoms and/or eating restrictions begin so suddenly that most parents can recall the exact day and time that the OCD or restrictive eating began. Under the PANS criteria, a child may never have had OCD before or a child previously had low level OCD and suddenly is debilitated by it. After onset, the OCD and comorbid symptoms may continue to appear over the next few days or weeks and may grow in intensity. In many cases, each new morning seems to bring another obsession, compulsion, or comorbid symptom. Comorbid symptoms and personality changes also occur. The rapid change in the child’s portfolio of symptoms makes it even harder for the patient and his or her parents to cope. PANDAS and PANS children frequently struggle with multiple OCD symptoms at the same time, as well as multiple simultaneous comorbid symptoms." (for more, click on link below)

Here are the guidelines for PANS https://www.pandasppn.org/ppn-pans-diagnostic-guidelines/
PANDAS (very wordy) https://www.pandasppn.org/ppn-pandas-diagnostic-guidelines/

I found this little gem, a compialation of different antibiotic alternatives https://buttercupfarm.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/alternatives-to-antibiotics/

PRICELESS Info from Mrs. Ashley on RecoveringKids.com/Biomedical healing FB Group (COPIED AND PASTED) I suggest copy and pasting the names of dr on you tube to watch their lectures.

Before you choose a doctor, you might find it helpful to search youtube for the following doctors and PANDAS...Dr. Latimer, Dr. Kovacevic, Dr. Trifiletti, Dr. Swedo, Dr. O'hara, Dr. Cunningham. There are quite a few videos of all of them speaking and you can get an idea of how they treat, their personalities, etc. Dr. Trifiletti and Dr. Kovacevic treat adults and probably have the most experience treating adults. Dr. Trifiletti has a FB page where you can follow him and get a feel for him. The FB page PANDAS/PANS/Lyme/Tick borne diseases is another god resource for finding a doctor. Your husband should read the research on the Pandas Physicians Network and consider joining wink emoticon.  pandasppn.org. The research is sound. Stanford, Yale, Harvard, NIMH..... In terms of treating naturally, I was in the same place. Once I identified PANS in my children, I treated only naturally for 2 years with one, 3 the other. Before that I had done 3 years of diet, cleaning up our indoor environment etc. Read up on rheumatic fever. PANS is no different. Once you understand what is happening to the brain and how similar it is to what happens to the heart in rheumatic fever, it is an easier pill to swallow choosing antibiotics, ivig, etc. I lost a lot of my older son's childhood remaining steadfast in my desire only to treat naturally, and I really regret it. Conventional treatment has really started giving him and us our lives back.

And my last word of advice...DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT....any scientist knows to record information. Get a notebook, and start writing things you remember....use pictures to help you remember dates. There is an app called Baby Connect that is AWESOME, I use to it to document when my kids are sick and other important things, and different caretakers can input info. No I am not making money by telling you this.  http://www.baby-connect.com

If you have cured you or your child from this or in the process of and see positive results, please share your story! Share this with those that can benefit from it.




Friday, February 27, 2015

Get them to look out the window....

I checked out a book from the library.... The Usborne Big Book of Experiments...and as I was flipping through the pages I came across a picture that just struck a million memories into my mind... it was a picture of crumbling bricks...it immediately brought me back to the time when I used to sit in the back of my dad's 1988 navy blue Toyota station wagon...I suddenly had a flash back of all of the days I would sit in the back seat and just stare out the window letting my imagination and curiosity run wild. No cell phones, no car t.v's, no gadgets, no distractions.


I remember while in elementary school, everyday, my dad would drive me to school. He would turn on his radio station, or ask me questions...but during this whole time I would just stare out the window. I would stare at the usual landmarks...I would stare at the people and their faces, trying to wonder what they were thinking, or what their life was like. I would stare at the trees, the leaves, the bark, the shapes... lol) ...I would stare at all of the buildings...the Hudson river...and then I would stare at all of the bricks supporting the over passes and the ramps...I would ask my dad questions...like "why are the bricks on the bottom fading away?...." My dad always had an answer...he would explain to me the scientific reason behind it...I thought it was fascinating. And it brought some interesting conversations...like "what is crack?" when seeing this famous picture on a handball court wall...and going to school in Spanish Harlem, you would see first hand what crack does to you...just by staring out the window...
I would stare at all of the little plants along the side of the road and try to recognize the flowers. As we approached the FDR highway I would stare into the forest and always look for a pack of dogs that I normally saw wondering around. I would imagine befriending one or taking one home to take care of. I would wonder, were they left there by someone? Were they born there? How did they eat? Did someone feed them? Were they nice?  As we would get closer to our destination...the expected bumper to bumper traffic would start close to the bottleneck...I would hear my dad sigh, and remember how he explained to me the other day what a bottleneck was...I would look out the front window and imagine what I would do if I was driving (I guess this is where my back seat driver kicked in



Even now as I get older...as I stare out the window (while my husband is driving of course! lol) I glance into the other cars...but I usually don't see little faces staring back...I see them glued to a T.V screen hooked up to their parent's head rest, or I see teenagers staring down at their iPhones or whatever gadgets in their hand...even I am that person in the front seat staring down at my phone when I should be doing other things...like looking out the window...

So this isn't meant to be a guilt trip, but just an eye opener. I hope this resonates with someone...

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Biography Book Report & Reading Log FREE

Hi there! My daughter who is currently in 2nd grade has been reading an interesting biography on George Washington. This was her first long chapter book (19 chapters!) and we are so proud of her and how much her reading has improved (with the help of incentives as well … hehehe…) So now I have decided to introduce her to the fun world of book reports! (a little sarcasm there)… so again on my online search for different graphic organizers, I found a few that I really liked, so I decided to mix different ideas and adapt it to her level…and viola! Below is her Graphic Organizer Biography Book Report :) We plan on making a Diorama next! Click here for some FREE helpful information and FREE printables at DLTK
I hope you all enjoy!  :) 

Also! I've created two different types of Reading Logs.. I hope no one gets offended that one is pink and one is blue…very gender oriented :) Maybe I will create a green one, as for now…time to get ready for bed!

**Tip** Our reading incentive that we like to use are "tokens"…when my daughter completes the reading list, correctly, I give her 4 tokens and a little "treat". I also give her tokens for other assignments as well…and when she fills up her little jar with tokens, she gets her "prize"…something we agreed upon in advanced…so for example…we agreed for each jar filled, she would receive $5…she wanted the American Girl Doll extremely bad…so we agreed she will work hard for it :) ….and boy did she! lol It took her a couple of months, but she managed to get $60…for her birthday we gave her the remainder…and she went and bought her doll with her own money…I love life lessons like these…one thing I learned though, is that its really hard to tell grandparents "NO"…well its not that hard, but if they are hard headed then yes it is :)



Thursday, November 6, 2014

United States Nomenclature Montessori Cards FREE



Hi there!
We have started our 2nd year of CC and our 3rd year of homeschooling! We are now a family of 6 as well lol so life has been very interesting, not a dull moment…and if I ever find myself bored…actually, no, I never find myself bored…but if I ever did…then something might be wrong…anyhows if you see the picture above, i've created nomenclature cards that helps the children associate where in the US the states are… I looked many places for something like this…but only found cards that had each state separate…so here you go! I also included the state capital and abbreviations…. if anyone here knows where cards like this are then please do share! lol It will save me a lot of time in the future…until then, I will slowly be creating more and more for each week. 

**Week 2&3 contains the state matching game…and includes the location of the state capitals…so far we have played it like a memory game, if you make up any other fun ways to play then please share in the comments below! Thanks



Files to download
Cycle 3 Week 1 United States Nomenclature Cards

Cycle 3 Week 2 United States Nomenclature Cards (includes individual state matching game)

Cycle 3 Week 3 (Includes individual state matching game)

***ADDED 11/12/2014**** Cycle 3 Week 4

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Getting Ready to Forage

I put together some helpful activities that I found for free. Its so important that the children are able to identify and differentiate between the different types of plants. It could be one little detail that makes one plant okay to eat and another one poisonous! So below are some activities that you can do before or after to help teach the different shapes of leaves and "margins" to help train their eyes. 


Leaf Identification Power Point FREE

 
Parts of a flower Montessori Matching Cards FREE
 

Links to Free botany activities  (purple links are free)

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Phonics and a preschooler

A very old version of hooked on phonics was given to us and we have been using it successfully with our 6 year old, so I decided let's teach our 3 year old too! Ha! I am sure he knows more letters then he leads on to know, but doing the letter flash cards along with the tape, over and over became tedious and tiring. I felt like he needed something more tactile while he was listening to the tape to help make it more concrete.

We do have sand paper letters, but they are a bit big and bulky to flip through during the song, so I started to look for sandpaper flash cards. I found some on amazon, but they didn't have great reviews and i didn't feel like ordering...so I came across this website and she has a very easy way of making cards! Glue and sand! Wow! I love simple and easy! Some things just don't need to be so complicated!

So I made some flash cards in pages, keeping the letters true to the Montessori colors (red for consonants and blue for vowels)

I found some glitter glue and voila!
I used my \ fiskar paper cutter, punched a hole with my hole puncher, and put a ring trough the whole. So simple. :)

So materials needed:
Card stock paper
Hole puncher
Paper cutter
Glitter glue (or glue and glitter, but messy!)
And a ring (1" is probably best)
PDF for flash cards
Website for original idea

Enjoy!









2013 Foraging Field Trip Wih "Wildman" Steve!

Yes I know, super late, but here are some pictures from our awesome homeschool field trip with "Wild Man" Steve Brill and his wonderful daughter/assistant Violet! (May 2013)

Also here is some links with more information on Steve Brill
Mr. Brill playing dead, this is what happens when you eat poisonous wild food!



Digging up some edible roots!




The "Brillophone" Duo, Steve Brill and his daughter Violet

Some vine swinging! They must have been pretty high! lol

Safely landed...

Azi's turn!