Lauren Johnson

Remember the 12-year-old little girl who made headlines recently who sneezes 12,000 times a day? If you don’t or are unaware, check out WAVY.com, they have all of the details about Lauren Johnson’s condition. The good news is she has been officially diagnosed with — parlez-vous français? — Paediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus, otherwise known as PANDAS.

According to Dr. Rosario Trifiletti, a child neurologist who is treating Lauren, “Following a common streptococcal infection, the most common of which people are familiar with, the strep throat from a few days to a couple of weeks later, there’s a marked change in a child that gets this.” According to Dr. Trifiletti, these changes happen quickly. PANDAS symptoms include:

On the down side, Lauren may end up with this disease again. Though they are currently treating her with antibiotics and she seems to be doing well, they are probably going to have to “place her on some sort of…a low dose of antibiotics, for a long period of time,” says Dr. Trifiletti.

Of course, as with many autoimmune diseases, Dr. Trifiletti says “there could be millions of kids suffering from PANDAS, but only several thousand have been diagnosed.” I’m glad she was finally diagnosed because she was unable to attend school or perform other activities because of the sneezing. Good job.