from our own data

Nine bottles. No map.

We counted what the children in our community are actually taking every morning — and then we counted what they had been tested for. The gap is the whole problem.

The number

The children in our cohort take a median of 9 supplements or medications every day. Not nine total — nine at once. Two-thirds are on five or more. Nearly half are on ten or more. One child is on 28.

And what they had never been tested for

When we looked at which tests actually come back abnormal:

Gut/microbiome — tested in only half the children. Nearly all of those tested came back significantly abnormal.
Mold/mycotoxins — tested in half. 90% of those were elevated.
Strep markers — 83% of tested children abnormal.
Bartonella — tested in fewer than half. Over half of those were positive.
HHV-6 — tested in fewer than one in three.

The tests with the highest hit rate are the ones our children were least likely to be given.

Why that happens

So families do what we did for years: add one more bottle. Then another. Guessing, because nobody handed us the map.

If you are handing your child a fistful of capsules every morning and you are not sure any of it is right — you are not alone, and you are not doing it wrong. You were never given the map.

Our cohort skews complicated — these are families who came to us because their child is hard. Rates here run higher than the general PANS population.

Want this answered for your own child? A Plan B synthesis reads every lab and note you have — together — and tells you what is driving the picture, what has never been checked, and what to ask for next.

The first one is free, and you keep the list either way. Phone photos of labs are fine.

Start a free synthesis

Keep reading

It is almost never one thing

In our cohort, 53% of children carried three or more infection or mold drivers at once. Why treating one thing at a time keeps failing.

Some kids collect infections

In our own cohort, children with abnormal immunoglobulins carried nearly twice the rate of stacked infection drivers. The standard blood test most PANS kids never get.

When the supplement is the problem

Methylfolate, methyl-B12 and TMG can drive irritability, aggression and agitation in the wrong child. How to spot it and what to check.

Plan B for PANS is written by a parent, not a physician. Nothing here is medical advice or a substitute for your child's clinicians — it is meant to make you the best-informed person in the room when you talk to them.