E 252 What Is PANDAS? The Hidden Cause of Teen Anxiety and Tics

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Could your child’s anxiety or tics be something more? Meet Ethan Pompeo, whose health journey led to answers—and a mission to help others.

Ethan was misdiagnosed with Tourette’s as a teen and put on over 40 medications before discovering the real root of his symptoms: PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcus). In this powerful interview, Ethan shares his long road to healing, how CBD became a turning point, and why he now helps families find natural, effective relief through his company, Green Valley Nutrition.

🎧 In this episode, we talk about:

What PANDAS is and why it’s often misdiagnosed

How inflammation and strep infections can impact brain function

Ethan’s experience with conventional and alternative treatments

Why he’s passionate about safe, THC-free CBD products for families

His mission is to educate, advocate, and offer hope through his story

✅ This is a must-listen for parents of kids with anxiety, compulsions, tics, or autoimmune symptoms—or anyone curious about holistic wellness and natural healing.

🔗 Links mentioned in the episode:
Get a free bag of CBD gummies

Learn more about Ethan’s book

Visit Ethan’s website

Follow Ethan on Instagram

Follow on Facebook

Watch more on YouTube

💬 Leave a comment if you’ve experienced a long journey toward a diagnosis—or found healing through unexpected solutions. We’d love to hear from you.

Disclaimer: This video is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your or your child’s healthcare routine.

#PANDAS #TeenAnxiety #CBDforAnxiety #NaturalHealing #ParentingTeens #EthanPompeo #GreenValleyNutrition 

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Transcript

Are you on a journey to discover simple and effective ways to enhance your overall wellness? Are you looking for information on natural solutions that can make a real difference in your daily life and the health of you and of your teens? Well, today I have Ethan Pompeo with me as a guest, and he has been transforming people's lives with these kinds of solutions.

So Ethan, I'm so excited that you're on the program today. 

Ethan Pompeo: Hey. Thank you, Cynthia. Thanks for having me. Yes. Yeah, excited to be on here today and share a little bit about my journey and how I got to where I am today. I definitely experienced health crisis and difficulty as a, a young adult and teen, and so that, that resonates with me.

Cynthia: Well, tell us about this health crisis because what you were diagnosed with, I have had students when I was a school counselor and some of my clients have been diagnosed [00:01:00] with this. So tell us about that. I. 

Ethan Pompeo: I think that's great. Quite frankly, 90, 95% of people I talk to have never heard of what I was eventually diagnosed with, and this was 20 years ago.

I was 13 years old and, uh, I, I started having these neurological symptoms out of the blue. I. I mean, I was healthy and quote unquote, normal. One night, I woke up the next day and I started having these motor ticks and this loss of motor function. I would have to do the skip step when I walked, and I'd have to pick up my pencil and put it down and pick it up and put it down over and over again until it.

Felt just right, and I had severe anxiety associated with that obsessive compulsive disorder. All of a sudden, my health started to cascade into this series of neurological symptoms that I had no control over, and we had no idea what was going on. So our first course of action was to go to our family physician who referred us to a neurologist and.[00:02:00] 

Effectively, I was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, which now we know was a misdiagnosis. Uh, essentially it was a label that was put on me in order to prescribe me prescription medication and get me out the door. Mm-hmm. And so that was my life for most of my teenage years, and for about a decade I had.

Been on and off over 40 different prescription meds. None of them helped me. Right. Most of the side effects outweighed the benefits that I felt from those meds. And I was left with a, a distaste for modern medicine for many, many years. Uh, and it was a discouraging, isolating, lonely place to be. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm.

So you were diagnosed with pandas, so I know whenever anyone hears that name, even myself, when I first heard it, I was like, is this a made up thing? What is this? So tell us what does this, what does it stand for, and what is that disorder? What do, um, how did they find it and what does it do? 

Ethan Pompeo: So Pandas, it raises eyebrows.

When I, [00:03:00] when I tell people what it stands for, uh, it's not the cute cuddly bamboo munching bear that we all are familiar with. Mm-hmm. It actually stands for pediatric autoimmune neurological disorders associated with strep. Mm-hmm. And essentially what happens is a, typically a strep throat infection causes an unusual autoimmune response on the body.

Namely, excess production of strep antibodies and antibodies are one of the few compounds that can cross the blood brain barrier. Meaning as a child, these antibodies were produced in such excess as I dealt with chronic strep throat infection and recurring infection that they, my strep titers were off the charts looking back at my blood work.

I mean, they were so high it, it was, it was absolutely, I. Insane. And what happened was these antibodies had nowhere to go. They were being produced in such excess. They entered my brainstem and caused inflammation in my basal ganglia, which is the motor cortex of your body. Thus, I experienced this cascade of [00:04:00] symptoms that I mentioned, the motor ticks, the anxiety, the OCD, all disturbing compulsive thoughts, um, all kinds of issues that wrecked my health and my day-to-day life.

Cynthia: Hmm. So how did they finally find this out? Because they think you have Tourette's and you're taking all these different medications going through life. Like how did it finally come out that this is what you really had? 

Ethan Pompeo: Well, it took about a decade of. First of all, trial and error. Just going from doctor's office to doctor's office, uh, trying to find someone who actually knew what was going on.

After trying several different meds and realizing like, this isn't working, I, I, I kind of took a step back and contemplated like, what does this even mean? Tore syndrome, right? We don't know what causes it. We don't know how to treat it really other than giving drugs and like seeing what works and what doesn't.

Mm-hmm. There there's no known cure. So like what, what is causing this thing? And for many years [00:05:00] we were essentially just trying to treat the symptoms with medication, completely ignoring and undressing the root cause of the illness, which was this baseline strep infection and inflammation in my brain that was driving all these symptoms.

So the, the page turned for me when I actually found a specialist who was well versed in Pandas. And by this time, you know, my parents and I, uh, my mom in particular had scoured the internet, you know? Mm-hmm. Read every book imaginable about these kind of autoimmune symptoms and ticks and whatnot. And we had essentially almost self-diagnosed, like we, we heard about this pandas thing through some blog.

Mm-hmm. I said, you know, that really sounds like what Ethan's dealing with. So mm-hmm. We, our Google search changed from like ticks and compulsions to Pandas doctors. Mm-hmm. And we eventually found someone who was specialized in this pandas thing and on our, on our on our meeting with her, uh, you know, it was a cold case.

It was like, yes, [00:06:00] this is a classic case of pandas. It, pandas is a clinical diagnosis, meaning there's no. Quantitative blood test you can take that says, yeah, boom, you've got this. It involves putting together the pieces of your medical history and your blood work and your symptom load and all these different factors and, and identifying like, yes, this, this appears to be a case of, of autoimmune encephalitis brain inflammation and, and pandas.

So it can be very difficult to diagnose. 

Cynthia: Mm. I never even thought about that. I thought, because it sounds like it started because of a strep infection that then kind of goes crazy that they would just look for that and then that would be the heta sign that, oh, this is what happened. But I guess if it was 10 years ago that you had strep infection, it doesn't necessarily mean you, you, they would find strep in your body at that point.

Right? Like when they're realizing that that's what happened. 

Ethan Pompeo: Well, I think on a [00:07:00] deeper level it's just counterintuitive to put those two together. Like why? Yeah. Why would strep throat cause like all these neurological symptoms and brain inflammation mm-hmm. It's like mm-hmm. The, the problem was in identifying the cause of this illness is like, it doesn't really make sense on a baseline level.

Like Right. Strep throat is like sore throat coughing. Mm-hmm. You know, you have it for a week, you get better, uh, antibiotics if you need it, right? Mm-hmm. It, it took a long time for experts to, to put these pieces together and realize like, man, this is actually a bacterial infection that's causing this issue.

Um, and so the big indicator was those strep throat titers, uh, that was a clear indicator that like, wow, your autoimmune system is going haywire, trying to treat this infection, like your strep antibodies should never be that high. Um, and mm-hmm. You know, I, I can't go over the numbers with you, but like, let's say a mm-hmm.

Baseline person, strep antibodies are at 200 after having an infection. [00:08:00] Mine were over 1400, like Oh wow. Crazy. So, as a result mm-hmm. Like I was very underweight at the time. I was 135 pounds just, you know, doing my thing and. Those antibodies had nowhere to go. I didn't have any mechanism to store them.

And so that's when they started to spread into areas where they weren't supposed to hang out and cause problems. 

Cynthia: Oh my gosh. Is there a medication or you know, what is the, I. What do you do when you have this? Like what is the typical way protocol that doctors use to help with this? 

Ethan Pompeo: So there's a two pronged approach that's typically used to treat people with pandas and the two prongs are addressing the.

The underlying infection. So usually a long course antibiotic treatment to eliminate the strep bacteria for good so that your body has a fighting chance, like you're never gonna be able to recover if you're still fighting off that infection. So getting rid of that is the first step. The [00:09:00] second prong is addressing the inflammation.

So once you've. Gotten rid of the, the driver of that inflammation. And, and your body doesn't have to continue fighting that bacteria. Now you can focus on ways to reduce that inflammation in your brain and in your body, uh, so that you can start to feel better. Mm-hmm. That's the difference between the Tourette syndrome.

Misdiagnosis and the pandas diagnosis is with Tourette's. We were simply slapping drugs at the problem. Mm-hmm. Trying to see what worked, you know, but it, we weren't, we weren't addressing the actual root cause of the problem. We were simply using medication as a bandaid to, to cover up the symptoms. And that was not a pathway to healing.

Once we identified that it was pandas, it gave us a path forward because we realized this is driven by inflammation and strep infection. We can target those two culprits and my symptoms. Mm-hmm. Would start to become mitigated naturally. Right? Mm-hmm. More holistically. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. Right. So you are on this mission [00:10:00] and have this company that treats things, greets, illnesses, or.

Discomforts, maybe if they're not like actual diseases with natural solutions. So probably because of this is one of the reasons why you got started in that. But tell us about these natural solutions and like why, you know, how you actually got into doing that. 

Ethan Pompeo: Yeah. So I have completely transformed my life since I was a teenager.

You know, not that I was living an exceptionally unhealthy lifestyle, but, uh, after I was diagnosed with pandas, you know, I, I think the conventional medicine, medicine approach that I, that I followed for so many years really normalized the concept of substance use in, in my mind. Mm-hmm. Right? We were just looking to, from, from pill to pill, to pill, to medication, to prescription.

To try to see what helps. And once we found something that helped, I, I mean, I'm assuming I would just be on it indefinitely, right? So, 

Cynthia: mm-hmm. 

Ethan Pompeo: I eventually got fed up with that. I [00:11:00] experienced physician fatigue. I was just sick of doctor's appointments, sick of pharmacies, sick of medication. And I decided to just back away from that.

This was around the same time that I was, uh, en entering high school and I started to discover, uh, marijuana and I started using marijuana daily because truly it was the only thing I found that gave me relief. I mean, mm-hmm. I knew when I smoked, my ticks would go away, my anxiety would calm down, I would feel better, I would be able to just.

You know, relax, take a deep breath. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, now I'm not condoning the use of marijuana here because I experienced myriad side effects with that as well, including paranoia and even increased anxiety at times. Mm-hmm. Uh, multiple run-ins with the law, which. Definitely spiked my anxiety and caused me more grief and problems I had.

Mm-hmm. I had conflict in my family, you know, because mm-hmm. My parents certainly did not condone [00:12:00] my use of cannabis, even though they, they did have a baseline understanding of why I was doing it. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, there, there's just so many issues, uh, including health risks associated with smoking and, and inhaling particulate matter.

So I needed a solution that would help me without having those risks and side effects. Mm-hmm. And inherent consequences. And so. Over time and through my journey, I discovered CBD, which is a cannabis compound, but it's not intoxicating. I, I call it nature's most powerful anti-inflammatory. And so my journey led me to this place where I, I realized I could get the benefits of cannabis without having to smoke or be high or risk my.

My freedom, right? Uh, I mm-hmm. It's, it's a legal substance, right? It's something that's safe for everyone if it does not contain any THC, the intoxicating compound found in marijuana. So I learned that I could use [00:13:00] CBD and get many of those same benefits. I, I'll never forget the first time I tried it, it was like a wave of anxiety.

Left my body. I, I took a deep breath, refocused, reexamined my life. And I like to say that CBD was the catalyst for much of the lifestyle change that I was incapable of making when I was stuck in my symptoms and wallowing in that self-loathing and unable to move forward, uh, with my health. 

Cynthia: Yeah. And we need that sometimes where we just have a clear idea of what's next.

So this was helping you so much that you decided to help other people with this same benefit. Is that correct? 

Ethan Pompeo: Yeah, it was, it was pretty serendipitous actually. I, I, uh, I was living in Colorado. I was working on an organic farm after college. It was the oldest organic farm in the state. Of Colorado and, and no, we were not growing cannabis.

This was like carrots and watermelons and all kinds of vegetables. Mm-hmm. And I just fell in love with the lifestyle, you [00:14:00] know, working outside in nature, getting my hands dirty. Mm-hmm. Eating fresh produce every day, you know, working with new types of people, getting sunshine. It is just so many benefits.

Mm-hmm. And moving from a lifestyle and a culture of like college on the East coast, everything's so fast paced and competitive and. High pressure to just kind of disbanding from all of that, just enjoying mm-hmm. Life and having a simple way of life. I, I fell in love with that, and that's out there actually in Colorado is where I was introduced to, to CBD.

So when I moved back to Virginia, I, I thought to myself, you know, I need to. I need to get my hands on this stuff. It's helping me feel better and I don't want to go back to like those old routines and those o old ways of cannabis culture and all that that had so many negative impacts on my life. So when I reached out to stores, you know, that you couldn't find CBD here, this was back in 2015.

I mean, it. It simply did not exist. So I reached back out to some friends in [00:15:00] Colorado and they actually were gracious enough to send me some raw materials, some active ingredients, and I started playing around, experimenting with it in the spare bedroom of my house, you know, formulating different oils and capsules and gummies and just.

For trying to get it into my body any way I could to see what worked best. Mm-hmm. Which dosages worked best. And you know, I'd post it up on my Snapchat and tell my friends about it, and pretty soon they were reaching out to me like, what's going on? What are you doing with this? And you know. Mm-hmm.

Granny heard about it and she wanted help with her sleep, and then mm-hmm. Grandpa heard about it and wanted to relieve his knee pain. And it's pretty soon like the most unlikely candidates started reaching out to me to try this stuff because they were seeing how it was helping me. You know, there was more research coming out about this stuff saying how it, it ba it combats anxiety and it, it's, mm-hmm.

It's a powerful pain reliever and it has anti-inflammatory properties and. You, you couldn't get it. So I realized there was [00:16:00] a, a need for this stuff. Mm-hmm. And so I started my business, uh, out of the spare bedroom of my house. And today we operate a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility here in Charlottesville, Virginia.

And, um, we're currently in the middle of a FDA clinical trial for. My CBD soft gels for pain relief and we're working with physicians and osteopathic surgeons and, uh, just really making an impact with this remarkable natural product. 

Cynthia: I love that so much. So that's so cool. So what is maybe the, is there an age limit on like how young someone can take CBD.

Ethan Pompeo: It's a common question we get. I am not a doctor so I cannot make specific recommendations, but what I can say is you need to be sure you can identify a source you can trust. That's the whole reason I started making it myself, is because I wanted to know exactly what was going in it. I wanted to make sure it was clean and trustworthy.

And there's many brands out there [00:17:00] that one, make false claims. You know, they say, Hey, we make our products, but they're really buying it from a, who knows where in California and slapping their label on it, you know? Mm-hmm. There's companies that are not doing third party lab testing of their products. So you don't know that what's in the bottle matches what's on the label.

There's all kinds of problems with the supplement industry in general. Mm-hmm. Uh, being largely unregulated. So we do a lot of that regulation ourselves, just ensuring that clients', patients are getting the, the medication they need to feel the, the best. Mm-hmm. And see, anyway, I, I, I always recommend if you're looking to give this to a teen or a youngster, that you select a brand that is THC free and mm-hmm.

The reason is you wanna get these benefits of plant medicine, of CBD without the risks. Mm-hmm. So by getting a CBD product that's TC free, there's zero risk of intoxication of getting high. There's zero risk of dependency. [00:18:00] Really the only common side effect of CBD is drowsiness, which is why people use it for sleep, and that's in higher doses.

So, mm-hmm. We typically recommend, you know, starting with a very low dose, working up as needed to feel your best. Mm-hmm. If you feel lethargic or sleepy, that could be a sign you're taking too much and you can cut back. But there's no toxicity with this product. I mean, it's been thoroughly tested.

There is no. Amount you can take that could be toxic or hazardous to your health. It's considered very safe. Mm-hmm. And so that's one of the reasons why it was an amazing solution for me, is because I knew if I was going to take it long-term, there would be no concerns or long-term health consequences of using this product.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. I also, I was thinking about this while you were talking that, so if someone had a, like some schools do random drug testing or someone's on a sports team and they do random drug testing, this doesn't come up as some kind of indicator or red flag type thing. [00:19:00] Like some, I don't know if any other, other than drugs actually comes up.

I don't know. So do you know if that would cause anything like that? 

Ethan Pompeo: Yeah. Uh, so if, if you select a CBD product, a th that's THC free, like our product line is, you will not fail a drug screening. Okay. Drug screens test for an enzyme that the liver is excretes, uh, after processing THC. Mm-hmm. And so if there's no THC in your product, then you're simply not gonna fail the drug test.

I've got, you know. I've, I've got active military personnel and people being drug screened for work truckers, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, people who cannot risk, uh, failing a drug screen or being intoxicated who rely on this product for, for daily relief. Mm-hmm. And so that's where the third party lab testing is so critical, you know?

Mm-hmm. With every product we have it third party lab tested up to five times throughout the manufacturing process to ensure. One, that there's no THC and that, you know mm-hmm. The [00:20:00] potency is correct. What's on the label matches what's in the bottle. And we also test for the presence of any possible contaminants, residual solvents.

Mm-hmm. Bacteria, mold, you know, anything that could present a potential health hazard. This is a product that I take myself. Uh, we, I rub my pain cream onto my wife's neck every night before bed, and it helps her go to sleep. Uh, it helps me relieve my anxiety and so if we're putting it in our bodies, we wanna know it's safe and trustworthy, uh, enough so that other people can use it and benefit from it as well.

Cynthia: Sure. And your company is called Green Valley Nutrition, is that right? 

Ethan Pompeo: That's right. Uh, if you go to my website, you'll notice my logo is a cute little panda bear. I have embodied my health crisis and my healing journey as part of who I am. Mm-hmm. And that in itself was transformative for me. I mean, for many, many years I was just so ashamed of what I was going through.

I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to [00:21:00] admit that I had a problem. I just wanted to go through life and pretend like it wasn't happening. Mm-hmm. And that. For one thing, it did not help me in any way. Mm-hmm. It put all the onus on my shoulders. I felt so much anxiety and pressure based around having to just bear this weight on myself.

Mm-hmm. Without having answers, without having a path forward. And then with my use of cannabis, like I had, I faced so much judgment from people who were close to me about what I was doing because one, they didn't understand or they had a different experience. So they didn't, they, they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that I was trying to use this medicinally in order to get some relief.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but the tide really turned when I decided to, to own this and, and realize, you know, it's okay that I'm battling this thing. Mm-hmm. Um, when I realized that. Like, not just me, but all of us are facing some kind of challenge. Yes. Or struggle in life. Uh, that was a transformative event for me because now mm-hmm.

I could relate to others. [00:22:00] I could share my story with others. It took the weight off me and allowed me to take a deep breath and say like, it's okay. This is who I am. And that's all right. But it also put me in a position to help others, to educate them about pandas, to promote awareness and advocacy for this.

This disease, which experts now estimate, affects one in 200 kids. Mm-hmm. So it's becoming mm-hmm. More and more common. Um, and yet people are still being misdiagnosed and mistreated, left and right. Mm-hmm. And aside from that de-stigmatizing this plant that I was condemned for using for so long and saying, look, there is a medical benefit to this, I just didn't know.

I just didn't know what it was. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. So you probably do mail order stuff from your business. And I am, I mean, I live in Kansas and everything's illegal here and I know there's CBD because we have, in my town there's a CBD American Shaman. I think that's kind of a more [00:23:00] of a na, a national company maybe.

But you know, I've seen those around and I know that they, you know, our, our selling CBD products, so I'm guessing people can get, I mean, wherever they're hearing this from, they would be able to order it and get it sent to them, and everything's fine with that. 

Ethan Pompeo: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're, we're blessed to ship to all 50 states and even internationally.

I mean, I've been amazed how people have found us, mm-hmm. Through word of mouth and through Google and just my social media and everything that we're doing, just to get the word out there. I mean I, I'm definitely offering a message of hope, not just for people with Pandas, but for anyone with.

Some kind of anxiety or inflammation driven disorder. I can't tell you how many people are, are giving this to their children with autism and it's producing life changing results for some of them. I mean, you go on the website, uh, and, and, and look at some of the testimonials we have on there. It is absolutely amazing what people are [00:24:00] saying.

Um, the anecdotal evidence in itself like speaks volumes about how this is helping people relieve their anxiety and relieve their chronic pain. Giving them a pathway for healing. But you know, we're, we're pushing the envelope in terms of empirical data as well with the clinical trials we're doing in partnership with the University of Virginia here.

Um, and, and independent research, educating physicians about alternative medications, alternative treatments, and pandas. I love it. Um, I work with a number of organizations who are big in, in the awareness space. So we have our, our big 5K fundraising event coming up in April, uh, in, in Washington dc uh, where we fundraise for physician education credits, which essentially gives, uh, doctors an opportunity to have a, a free course that educates them about how to recognize, diagnose, and treat illnesses like pandas more effectively.

Mm-hmm. Uh, because that was my main issue, is that nobody knew what it, what they were [00:25:00] looking at. Nobody knew how to treat it. Mm-hmm. So by educating physicians, we're equipping them and empowering them to diagnose and treat this so that maybe the road for others won't be as difficult as what I faced.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. Well, and inflammation is really the beginning of almost every disease that hurts us. And so I could see that this could be helpful to anyone who, you know, just wants to do something for their own wellbeing or wellness, and it's a natural thing that they can check into. So we're gonna put all the information about that in the show notes, but you also are writing a book, so tell us about that.

Ethan Pompeo: I am. Yes. So everything we've talked about is kind of like a bird's eye view of my life. Mm-hmm. And what I've learned, um, I have definitely become something of a pandas expert just through walking this journey for so long. Mm-hmm. And I get calls and emails, I. Every day from parents who are looking for, uh, help and assistance and advice.

And it gave me the idea, man, I really need [00:26:00] to like, put all the information I've compiled through my life, uh, in, in a book, in a tangible format. So for the last year and a half I've been writing this book. It's a deep dive into my story, my journey, everything I've learned. Body, mind and spirit, my faith, everything, uh, intertwined into this one story that that hopefully inspires and also informs people about how to make good decisions for their health.

So, uh, if you'd like to learn more about it, uh, it's on Amazon. It's, uh, I, I'm sure you can connect. Through my website as well to learn more about it. Mm-hmm. Um, but I'd, you know, if this is, if this conversation has been something that resonates with you, I definitely think you should look into, into read, grabbing the book and, and reading it.

Inflammation is our body's first line of defense. Right. Ideally, it's there to protect us against foreign invaders and pathogens, but when it gets out of control, that's when it can start to cause problems. And that's what people with mm-hmm. [00:27:00] Autoimmune encephalitis face. 

Cynthia: Well, I I'm also gonna put the link to your book and all the things in there too, so that people can just to get that and get more information.

And I know this is gonna be so helpful to parents because like I said, I've had clients and students that have been diagnosed and. I think their families do feel a sense of, I don't know what to do, or I don't know how we're supposed to take care of this. And some of those diagnoses were quite a few years ago, which was probably during that time when no one really knew what it was or they were maybe being misdiagnosed before they actually got the real diagnosis.

So, um, this is, I'm so glad that you're out there helping because we need that. There's so many things, I mean. Doctors, there's so many things to know. Doctors certainly can't know everything right about everything. It's just too hard. And so we do need to seek out people that have more knowledge in that area to help us.

And I do a lot of self [00:28:00] diagnosing. That's not always good. But I, I do a lot of self diagnosing and then I figure out what my problem is, and then when I go to the doctor, I say, Hey, guess what? I have this. And so we need to take care of it. And, you know, I let them do their testing to make sure that this is, but I almost always know.

Exactly what I do have, because I know myself and I know when things are not going right and then I look up all the things and it, you know, so that's how I do it. And luckily my doctor's like, okay, let's, let's figure this out. But I think, you know, having your information and they could go to their doctor with this information and say, we really think.

This is what's going on. Of course, they're gonna need to do their things, but that could be so helpful. And I just love that you have this CBD option that families can try if that's something that they're interested in for themselves or for their teens. And like you're saying, you know, you're not saying as a [00:29:00] doctor that it's, you know, it's, it's just like this is something that.

Maybe they could go to their doctor with and say, we wanna try this. What do you think? Or, you know, what are your what ideas do you have? So I'm just so glad that you're out there doing this work. And is there anything else you'd like our audience to know today? 

Ethan Pompeo: Um, I always say at the end of the conversation, like, never give up.

I don't mean to underplay the significance of pandas and the symptoms on the entire family. Mm-hmm. Not just the patient themselves, but as parents, you feel powerless when you watch your child, like lose control of their body, like. This, it's, it's very discouraging and overwhelming at times. And so, you know, I joke with the parents.

They, they call, they say, well, this helped my kid. And I can tell in their voice, I think, you know, may, maybe you should be taking this too. Like, it, it, uh, it definitely helps reduce anxiety and stress and so it's something that can benefit. The whole family without having, you know, the guilt or the [00:30:00] risks that, that we've talked about.

So that's why I'm passionate about it. Um, it's made a huge difference in my life. I, I don't think I could have gotten from where I was to where I am today without a little relief. Mm-hmm. Just based on how my symptoms impacted every aspect of my life. I was very much stuck in that position of. Of just not, not knowing where to go, not knowing mm-hmm.

Which steps to take. Uh, yeah. And so sometimes we just need a little relief, a little push in order to get us from A to B, uh, and mm-hmm. And that's, that's what I'm offering today. Uh, that's why mm-hmm. I, that's why I do what I do. And I'll be honest, Cynthia, it's quite fulfilling to offer a product that helps people and doesn't give them cancer.

Yes. So I, I can sleep well at night knowing mm-hmm. That my products are helping people. And so yeah. If, if you have questions about this, if you'd like to learn more, uh, my website is a wealth of information for all things CB, D and [00:31:00] Pandas. Uh, I have a blog on there where I write more in depth about this stuff and.

Uh, if you'd like to learn more, just feel free to reach out. We're here to help and we'd love to answer your questions. 

Cynthia: That's wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us. This was so good for everybody and it helped me to learn a lot too. 

Ethan Pompeo: Wonderful. Well, yeah, I was encouraged that you had actually you knew about pandas.

You know, you said you've had students who had been diagnosed with it. So that's encouraging to me that more people are actually like, aware of this. And it's not just the kid who's twitching in the back of your classroom, right? Mm-hmm. You understand there's what's more of the bigger picture of what's going on, so that, that means our work is, is actually making a difference.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. Well, and I've been seeing, uh, more people talking about it online too. Yeah. And so I know that people are, are seeking information and answers for this, so I'm so glad you're out there doing that. 

Ethan Pompeo: Yeah. Thank you, 

Cynthia: Uhhuh. You're welcome.