Girl who sneezes 12,000 times a day gets official diagnosis - Update

The 12-year-old Virginia girl who sneezes up to 12,000 times a day has an official diagnosis. Lauren Johnson, who started sneezing constantly throughout the day after suffering a bad cold in November, was diagnosed with Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus, which is also known as PANDAS. "Now we can actually treat it as something," says Lauren who is thrilled to finally have a diagnosis.

Dr. Rosario Trifiletti, a child neurologist who is treating Lauren explained the onset of PANDAS. "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."



Trifiletti says those changes happen quickly. PANDAS symptoms include:

•Cognitive inflexibility, difficult to reason with, as if stuck on an idea
•Obsessive/repetitive/compulsive argumentative behaviours
•TICS (repetitive vocalisations of body movements)
•Tourettes Syndrome
•Attention deficits and oppositional/defiant behaviour.

The good news? There is treatment for Lauren and other children who suffer from PANDAS. "She was placed on antibiotics and has improved considerably," says Dr. Trifiletti.

However, there is some bad news. "Lauren is at risk of getting this again, so we're probably going to place her on some sort of...a low dose of antibiotics, for a long period of time," says Dr. Trifiletti.

With news video. Previously.