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Building A Community of Healing in the Midst of PANDAS/PANS Chaos:
The Best Holiday Gift Ever!
     By: Dr. Lisa Scholder, LP  
  
   Let's face it, life is often challenging.  Life for parents of PANDAS/PANS children is exponentially more stressful especially during the holiday season.  Between managing neurologic and psychiatric symptoms during flares, awaiting flares, and a divided medical community with few treatment options, parents are often left heartbroken, exhausted, and distressed!  Now, let's add the expectations and demands of holiday time to the mix.  When other families are attempting to achieve the Norman Rockwell ideal, PANDAS/PANS families are struggling to just maintain a feeling of "normalcy!" We can get trapped in the stress of holiday expectations from ourselves and others, while trying to manage and help our children.
   There may actually be a way to improve your quality of life under these intense conditions that could have lasting effects! Believe it or not, we don't need to white-knuckle our way through life. Building and utilizing a community of healing may be the only way out. It is part of a vital "self-care list."  It's long past time we gift ourselves this holiday season with better health and improved quality of life! 
   To attain and maintain our own mental and physical health is our primary job.  It gives us the fortitude to continue our fight for our children.  There is no better gift this holiday season to yourself and family then to achieve better health.  Following are ways to bring attention to our body and mind.

11/2015