Wide eyed but not so bushy tailed.

Dr Kovacevic is one of the leading doctors for PANDAS.. and at his website for his office he has a list of PANDAS & PITAND Syndromes signs and symptoms Click here if you wish to see the whole list. but I have added his #4 here below.

(4) Presence and/or history of certain characteristic physical signs and symptoms. Adventitious movements have been identified in 31% of patients.
Wide pupils (patient appears "terror stricken"; present 83% of patients).
Various and evolving tics (present in 72% of patients).
Deterioration in fine motor skills and handwriting (dysgraphia)(89% of patients).
Short-memory loss (62% of patients).
Enuresis and/or urinary frequency (88% of patients).
Increased sensory responses (increased sensitivity to light, and/or sound, and/or touch, and/or smell) reported in 39% of all patients.
Non-specific gastro-intestinal complaints commonly reported.


I knew when Sweet Pea was going though the worst of this last year that she just looked different.. I couldn't explain to anyone what made her look different. I always said it was her eyes but I wasn't sure why.. I thought it was just sort of like the light that use to be in her eyes were gone..
Then she got her school pictures back from this year and I knew what it was it was the pupil dilation the wide pupil that Dr K mentioned at his website.



Here take a look.



Sweet Pea 1st grade before the onset of PANDAS. I believe the onset of PANDAS was late January early Feb 2009 this was Oct 2008 (but she could have been having milder PANDAS stuff before then that I just didn't know about guess we will never really know)

Sweet Pea 2nd grade in the mist of PANDAS before we knew what it was Oct 2009 I remember this day well she had a melt down before school because at the time she was wearing my teenagers cloths because she was saying everything was too tight and hurting her.. She also was fighting me on baths and washing her hair.. so she and I had a big fight that day about her wearing the shirt i bought her for pictures and also her letting me add some curls to her hair.. I won the battle but now wish I knew what was going on and that I wouldn't have battled with her over it and just would have let her been.

Sweet Pea 3rd grade Oct 2010 we found out about PANDAS and started treatment in May 2010

Now a closer look at her eyes

1st grade

2nd grade


3rd grade.

Look at the difference in the size of her pupils after she started the treatment for PANDAS.. I can go back to all the pictures I took of her last year(and I take Alot of pictures.. I'm a little camera happy LOL) and all of the pictures I have of her look the same with the wide pupils. I shared these pictures with other parents of PANDAS children.. and this is what one of the mothers wrote back to me.

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What an amazing album you've created here. When you zoom in on the eyes, well, it is really something, the change in the final picture after treatment has begun. Keep this. I wish there were researchers or doctors we could send this to so that they could understand. Such physiologic change for something that so many docs say is "in their head". HA! A child can not think their pupils into dilation. The medical complexity of PANDAS is mindboggling to me.
Thank you for sharing this,
I plan to keep it in my stuff if you don't mind.

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This got me thinking.. Why not send it to some of the doctors.. Don't know if they can do anything with it.. but what can it hurt to send.. So I think I'm going to start with sending this to her pediatrician With a note of Thanks for being willing to call this PANDAS even when he knew he would take alot of slack from it from others in the medical field.. and Thank him for treating her and for giving me my bright eyed little girl back.

Thank you So much Dr Trippe words could not express the gratitude I feel. Thanks Giving is just two days away and you can be sure we will be giving thanks for you along with the other blessings God has given to us.