I am now half-way legitimate.
The rare disease site, here: https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/ has a section on PANS. It says "Symptoms typically begin during childhood but may begin at any age." So, an adult can have PANS.
But why half-way, you ask.
Well, the trouble is that United States pediatricians still mostly don't believe in it and adult physicians either haven't heard about it at all or have heard about it and say, "But that is pediatric."
Yes, but it's an antibody disorder and antibodies are lifelong. At least, sometimes the immune system doesn't work as well in the truly old, which in my book is over 90.
This reveals something curious to me. Almost NONE of the doctors I have been to are curious about it. My primary care doctor, who I'd been seeing for seven years and who sings in chorus with me, did not read the link about update on treating pandas. I got fairly annoyed. She says, "I have 3200 other patients." I switched primary care doctors, to one that I think DOES have intellectual curiosity. This explains a little why some doctors can see 18 or more patients a day. They stay in their wheelhouse. The cardiologist says, "It's not your heart. The pulmonologist needs to find an overarching diagnosis." I point out that I am on my fourth pulmonologist since 2012 and none of them have come up with one. The only person who suggested any overarching diagnosis is the psychiatrist who retired in 2013. Clearly he had intellectual curiosity to the end of his career, because he was reading about pediatric neuropsychiatry even when he did not take care of children. The physician who first told me about PANDAS is an Infectious Disease specialist and he already believed in it in adults, so I had no idea that it was controversial. He is now head of my state Health Department for fighting infectious disease.
So I am still in the category of rare diseases where no one in my state can or will believe me and/or diagnose it. They also don't know how to treat it. However, I found a conference.
https://pandasnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/1018110_Childhood_Encephalitides_Broch-8_5x11-122321-4aDIGITAL_Final.pdf
Virtual and inexpensive, so I am signed up. The physicians are mostly neurologists and in New York State. This should be very interesting.
No wonder I have trouble with 18 patients a day. Because if I had a patient with something unusual or new or different, I read about it. I am curious. I am here to learn every day.
And no wonder I don't fit in with my doctor peers here. I feel like I am a different damn species than them.