The Whisper Then the Hammer: Rethinking Early Signs of Developing Childhood Illness

I want to share an early finding from the Journeys Through PANS/PANDAS project I’m working on — one that mirrors what I hear in practice and reveals a major gap in how our current systems respond to children’s (and adults’) health.

Across interviews, parents described noticing early, subtle signs of neuroinflammation long before a full crisis. These weren’t dramatic or alarming at first — they were whispers. And parents, being deeply in touch with what is normal for their children, noticed them well before the onset of PANS/PANDAS.

Here’s how some of the parents described those early changes:

“She started having a weird gesture… hands up, mouth wide… so out of character.”

“She started having a lot of GI issues… we thought maybe constipation… and an increase in anxiety… then the tics.”

“He developed a snorting and nose tic… but the doctor said kids can do that.”

These are the body’s early signals — quiet indicators of neuroinflammation beginning to take shape. In practice, this often looks like:

• Headaches

• Sleep changes

• Subtle anxiety

• Irritability

• Sensory issues

• GI changes

• And many more

These whispers reflect what’s happening beneath the surface: chronic inflammation, immune dysregulation, microbiome shifts, hormonal imbalance — interconnected systems reinforcing dysregulation in each other. None of these system imbalances is the culprit itself - there is a separate driver that initiates the process, but over time and without properly addressing the root cause, the systems get further dysregulated.

And here’s the bigger issue:

Our culture has normalized chronic dysfunction - aka living with the whisper.

We as adults have learned to live with things in ourselves and in our kids:

• Sleep problems

• Irritability

• Constipation, diarrhea, or IBS

• Fatigue

• Anxiety - and anxiety in 7 year olds, and overwhelm in teens

• PMS

• Chronic headaches

We call this “normal.” But normal and common are not the same thing.

These are the language of the body — early warning signs of biological stress.

Not every whisper turns into a hammer. But every whisper is a message from the body about an imbalance that we don’t have to live with. Not silencing the whisper through medication, but through root cause healing and rebalancing the system - which relieves the need for the body to express symptoms. This requires a whole body approach to looking at wellness and each body’s specific language, and it’s a very powerful and empowering way of looking at health.

The rising rates of ADHD, asthma, PANS/PANDAS, autism, and other “modern” illnesses in our kids is showing us that we’re living in a new era of childhood illness — an era with the prevalence of chronic toxins, immune disrupting chemicals, environmental burdens such as mold, and trauma became woven into daily life.

If you’re noticing a whisper in yourself or your child, please reach out. Homeopathy can help.