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Brainstorm Health

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Brainstorm Health

Stella has a special interest in digestive disorders, autoimmune conditions, food intolerances and the relationship between genetics and nutrition.
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Brainstorm Health is an award-winning Functional Medicine and Nutritional Therapy clinic, providing cutting-edge health solutions for children and young adults on the autism spectrum, as well as those with PANDAS, PANS, depression, anxiety, and long COVID Brainstorm Health was founded by Stella Chadwick, with a commitment to achieving optimum health for children and young adults on the autism spectrum, as well as those with behavioural and learning difficulties, and food and chemical sensitivities. Stella has a first class BSc Honours degree in Nutritional Therapy, with extensive training in the principles of Functional Medicine, which assesses and addresses the underlying causes of conditions.

23/09/2025

Since yesterday’s announcement, my inbox has been full.
Parents asking the same question: what does this mean for our children?

Two areas are suddenly in the spotlight:
Folate metabolism
Paracetamol

Folate isn’t just a vitamin.
It’s a transport system.
When antibodies block that system, the brain runs on empty.

Paracetamol isn’t just pain relief.
It drains glutathione.
When glutathione is low, toxins build and the brain takes the hit.

I’ve written a blog to break it down for parents.

Link in comments below 👇

22/09/2025

Finish the sentence:
The hardest part of this journey with autism, PANDAS or PANS is…

18/09/2025

5 children with PANS.
3 also had autism.
1 infusion of IVIG.

Immune cells shifted within a day.
Clinicians judged 4 of 5 children to improve.
Headache was the only side effect noted.

But what exactly changed?
And how strong is the evidence?
That’s where it gets complicated.

I’ve written a new blog breaking down this study - what it really shows, what it doesn’t, and why it matters for families.

Read the full critical analysis here.

Link in comments below 👇

14/09/2025

Every day you wake into a fight you did not choose.

But biology shifts.
Brains rewire.
Bodies rebuild.

Today does not get the last word.

13/09/2025

He was calm. Then the lid would not fit on the box.
He screamed. Threw it. Burst into tears.
Another meltdown over nothing.
Except it was not nothing.

This was happening every day.
Tiny triggers. Big explosions. Mood swings. Irritability. No warning. No way to stop it.

Doctors said autism. Anxiety. Maybe ADHD.

No one said lithium.
Not the drug. The mineral. The trace amount the brain needs to stay regulated.

When it is low, the smallest thing can feel like too much.
Impulse control drops. Emotions spill over. Sleep unravels. Blood sugar crashes. B12 tanks.

There is no routine test. You have to notice the signs.

What can help?
⚡️Low dose lithium orotate.
⚡️Support B12 and folate.
⚡️Spring water.
⚡️Mineral rich food.

Sometimes the difference between chaos and calm is one tiny thing no one thought to check.

10/09/2025

Could Yakult be a sleep solution?
Sounds ridiculous. But one study showed it might help.

94 medical students.
High stress.
Those who drank Lactobacillus casei Shirota (the strain in Yakult) kept their deep sleep.
The placebo group didn’t.

And it’s not the only one.
Lactobacillus plantarum PS128 has been shown to improve sleep in people with insomnia.
Bifidobacterium lactis BLa80 has lifted sleep scores in healthy adults.

So is sleep just a bacteria problem?
Not in autism, PANS or PANDAS.
We see:

⚡️Histamine stuck on high
⚡️ Silent reflux disrupting nights
⚡️ Low iron triggering apnoea
⚡️ Blood sugar crashes at 2am
⚡️ Glutamate overload from food and gut imbalance

Sleep in these children is never one-dimensional.
But these studies show the gut is part of the switch.

And when we calm gut, immune, and nervous systems together - sleep finally has a chance.

Study in comments 👇

07/09/2025

Progress is rarely loud.
It shows in fewer rituals,
less panic,
deeper sleep,
calmer mornings,
a nervous system holding its ground.

Keep going.

05/09/2025

When we hit 10,000 followers I asked:
What’s the one question you wish someone would finally answer about autism, PANS, or PANDAS?

Hundreds of you replied.
We’ve chosen the top three.

The first:
When does OCD stop being PANDAS and become an ingrained habit?
And if supplements and medicines don’t work, how do you help a child long term?

Too big for a single post.
So I wrote the full breakdown – link in comments below 👇

This is the start of a series.
Three questions.
Three answers.
All from you.

Stella 💛

04/09/2025

7 years of blood tests reveal shocking nutrient gaps in kids with ADHD

UK kids, ages 4–18
47 children, 10 adults
Blood tests run over 7 years

Findings:
95% had low omega-3
88% had low B2
71% had low zinc
65% had low vitamin D
Over 80% reacted to dairy and gluten

The lower the nutrients, the higher the ADHD symptom scores:

⚡ Learning and language problems
⚡ Disruptive behaviour
⚡ Anxiety and mood swings

Nutrients weren’t the side story.
They were the pattern.
And patterns can change.
We see it every day in our clinic when the right pieces go back in.

Study link in comments 👇

03/09/2025

10,000 of you.

Hitting 10,000 followers tells me one thing: families want answers. They want change.

When I started Brainstorm Health, it was one child, one family, no team, just me, determined that kids deserved better.

Today we are a team of functional medicine practitioners specialising in autism, PANDAS, and PANS, working with families across the UK and beyond.

To mark this milestone, what’s the one health question about autism, PANS, or PANDAS you wish someone would finally answer?

Over the next week, I will take the top three questions and turn them into clear, practical posts so every family here can benefit.

This milestone is not about us. It is about what happens next together.

Stella 💛

02/09/2025

Covid has been a brutal trigger for PANS and PANDAS.
We’ve seen the flares.
We’ve sat with the families in crisis.
We know the devastation.

But here’s the thing.
PANS and PANDAS didn’t begin with Covid.

For decades, parents have watched strep, mycoplasma, Lyme, flu, mould, trauma - even metabolic stress - turn a child’s life upside down.

Covid just poured fuel on a fire that was already burning.
That’s not to minimise its impact – far from it.
If anything, it tore the lid off what many had ignored for too long.

It changed the numbers.
It made the world finally pay attention.
But these children have been here all along.

At our clinics, we’ve been working with families through every trigger - before, during, and after Covid - to bring the pieces together.

This story is bigger than one virus.

01/09/2025

We’ve watched this pattern for years.
A child gets an infection.
A nasty bout of food poisoning.
Sometimes a tick bite.
A move to a mouldy home.
Other times a head injury.
A major life trauma.

At first it’s small things:
Sleep off. Mood sharper. Appetite changing.

Parents keep going.
Teachers say "wait and see."

But the changes stack up.
OCD rituals creep in.
Food refusal.
Rages.
Skills slipping.

Until one day it feels like the child you knew has vanished.

And still people say:
"It’s just strep."
"It’s only anxiety."

This new study proves otherwise.

100 children. 3.7 years.
32 with full PANS: OCD. Anxiety. Tics. Regression.

The findings:

⚡️Not just strep - repeated infections in early life stacked up across many children

⚡️Crashes often followed illness, major stress, or immune strain

⚡️Immune cells looked exhausted - when challenged in the lab, they barely responded

⚡️Protein-making machinery inside cells was on overdrive, churning out too many signals at the wrong time, flooding the system with confusion

⚡️Gene switches that control inflammation and stress were unstable, flipping on and off when they shouldn’t

⚡️Pathways to fight infection and switch off inflammation were shut down

IVIg calmed things briefly.
Symptoms returned in weeks.

This is not one germ.
Not one trigger.
Not one answer.

It’s a body-wide systems crash that needs a body-wide response.

In our clinic we go after the whole picture - gut, immune, inflammation, nervous system, energy, minerals, hormones - because nothing truly changes until the body itself is no longer under siege.

Study in comments 👇

Address

London

Opening Hours

Monday	9:30am - 5:30pm
Tuesday	9:30am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	9:30am - 5:30pm
Thursday	9:30am - 5:30pm
Friday	9:30am - 5:30pm

Website

http://www.brainstormhealth.co.uk/?utm_source=facebook

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