![]() Gauch’s children are also grown up with her daughter earning straight A’s in college and her son a starting football player who takes honors courses. At this year’s PANDAS awareness day at the State House, which took place earlier this month, he called PANDAS a “heinous, mind-altering disease that would end up consuming my life and pushing me out stronger on the other side.” Her other son, Luca, is a senior in high school. ![]() Vitelli said her sons still have flares sometimes, but overall PANDAS for them has gone from “crisis to chronic.” Her oldest son, who was first diagnosed with PANDAS, graduated top of his class and is now in college. One treatment that the mandate will help cover is intravenous immunoglobulin therapy, an infusion that is one of the most effective methods in treating severe PANDAS, and has proved to be a lifesaver for both Gauch and Vitelli’s kids. Josh Cutler, D-Plymouth, spearheaded the bill, which passed in record time and will cost mere pennies each year for the average person. The same bill that established the council also created a new insurance mandate that will cover life-changing immune therapies for critically ill patients. The council had its first meeting a couple of weeks ago and will meet again later this month. The advisory council, mandated by the governor through the Department of Public Health, will make recommendations and issue an annual report to the general court on practice guidelines for PANDAS treatment and diagnosis, screening protocols, community outreach and ways to increase awareness. What Gauch and Vitelli experienced is a similar path of confusion, pain and misunderstanding that impacts other families struggling with the rare condition caused by strep bacteria that hides in the body.īut they’re hoping to change that by raising awareness through a new state advisory council that was established by legislation passed earlier this year. “The most painful part of it, honestly, is you lose your child but you still see your child in there, so you can’t really grieve the loss,” Gauch said. Many experience sudden obsessive behaviors, anxiety, fear, irritability, depression or suicidal thoughts. Those are typical symptoms for kids with PANDAS and PANS, pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome. Shortly after, her son started struggling as well, and had such bad separation anxiety, Gauch said she could barely go to a different floor of the house. ![]() That’s the case for a lot of parents who see a drastic and alarming change in their child with little to no explanation. Vitelli had never heard of PANDAS before, and her son received several incorrect diagnoses before finding out what the problem actually was. It’s been an absolute nightmare,” Vitelli said, adding, “You literally lose your children overnight.” Her son had PANDAS, pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections, which would come to impact three of Vitelli’s four sons. So we knew something was drastically wrong,” Vitelli told the Herald. “He was in third grade and he had read the entire Harry Potter series by third grade and he couldn’t, at this point, couldn’t read a page in the book, couldn’t add two numbers together. About 10 years ago, Marshfield resident Jennifer Vitelli put her young son to bed and woke up the next morning to a different child who could no longer read, write or even tie his shoes anymore.
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