If you really feel it's a sudden onset with a possibility of pandas then my understanding is the quicker the treatment the less long lasting the symptoms. Perhaps a visit to the pediatrician for the "regular 8 year checkup" might be in order... just discuss concerns in a phone call ahead of time and after, versus with DS in the room.
But besides Pandas -- my DS4 gets his difficult side of himself amplified if he is the least bit ill, it doesn't necessarily need to be pandas. Recently I noticed DS had been having meltdowns way more than I remembered, a bit more obsessive, just more bothered by everything that bothers him -- I was beginning to think of it as a new phase of his personality as it had been weeks since he'd had a day where he just rolled with things. Thinking back realized he'd also had smelly breath for something like a month, which we'd put down to us not getting him to brush enough. Still no idea what exactly it was (tonsils maybe?), but a course of azithromycin and his personality got a lot more pleasant in it seemed like not even 36 hours, and the breath too.
Would be ironic if there was a germ involved.
Polly
