SHINE BLOG

PANDAS Article Dallas Child Magazine

Oct 20, 2017

Category: Behavior Brain Function

PANDAS Article – Dallas Child Magazine

By: Randy Naidoo M.D., FAAP, ABIHM

The human brain is full of complex actions involving chemicals, electrical charges, the flow of fluid and many other complex physiological processes that the simple physician, psychologist, educational diagnostician, counselor or the numerous other therapist who work with children that have disorders of the mind do not understand or do not take the time to appreciate.  You can take a very reductionist view of the brain and compartment every issue to a certain type of therapist or intervention. 

As I have learned over the years, there is so much rich relationship and interaction between the human brain and our immune system, our gut, our cardiac system and even our respiratory tract. When a patient presents to his or her physician, we must be open to the vast possibilities that affect behavior. We must appreciate how interventions such as simple antibiotics, the foods we eat, the vaccines that we receive, the over the counter medications, the infections, the toxins and chemicals in our environment, how all of these things can impact our brain. 

To simply give a patient an ICD-10 diagnosis that fulfills insurance companies and meets the criteria for drug prescribing is not enough in 2017.   We must demand more of our brightest minds in healthcare or we lose our future generations to a fatalistic approach of medications being the panacea while the human brain continues a decline that will have no hope at the end.  We will look back at the brains of our future and say, what have we done? Why do we act in such a poor way to one another? Why is the human mind deteriorating? Our elderly are not of sound mind? Is there something we should learn from our elderly about what happened to them as children?  

We look forward at SHINE to changing the trajectory of the human mind to allow for hope and aspirations of parents, grandparents, family and friends of a child to be fulfilled.  That is the most amazing gift to give a child. The opportunity to have possibility is SHINE.

Read full article in April 2017 Dallas Child: SHE’S NOT THERE