• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Question about a positive Cunningham Panel

Messages
86
Hi
I had a question regarding the Cunningham Panel. It is: what might several elevated biomarkers of the Cunningham Panel point to in the absence of suspected PANDAS, PANS, or other neuropsychiatric disorders? I understand that this might still be in the process of being researched, though.

The reason I ask is that my 23-year old daughter has a confirmed diagnosis of postural orthostatic syndrome (POTS), which is a form of dysautonomia, along with autonomic neuropathy. Her doctors believe that the POTS is being caused by some other underlying disorder which has yet to be diagnosed. The Cunningham Panel was ordered to investigate further evidence of autoimmunity, since this was suspected, but none had been identified thus so far. Although she does suffer from fatigue, chronic tingling/numbness, lightheadedness, brain fog, GI and other symptoms, they can all be explained by POTS.

The confounding factor is that she does not have any of the neuropsychiatric symptoms that people who have PANDAS or PANS demonstrate.

So, I wondered if elevated results in the absence of neuropsychiatric symptoms are clinically significant. And if so, I wondered if that generally indicates autoimmunity or inflammation in the central nervous system, or something more specific, although not necessarily PANDAS or PANS.

Thank you in advance for any general information you could provide.

Scotty81
 

renski

Senior Member
Messages
338
Location
Honolulu
Is there any point to running this test, does it actually give you something actionable? I'm assuming yes but seems like an expensive piece of paper