DICKSON, Tenn. -
Another Middle Tennessee woman has come forward saying she is convinced the strep bacteria changed her life.
Earlier this week, a story about 15 students from a New York high school who suddenly started having uncontrollable twitches made national news.
Doctors tried to diagnose the condition. Some even thought the students were faking it.
Thursday, Nashville's News 2 reported that a Mid-State mother believed strep caused her six-year-old son to display unusual facial ticks and develop Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Nashville's News 2 also received dozens of emails from people throughout the state and the country who have similar stories, including one young woman from Dickson.
When Erica Rahman saw the story, her reaction was, "Oh my goodness I'm not alone. They're not faking. I wasn't faking."
In 2010, one side of Rahman's body was numb. Her mother immediately took her to the hospital, but her symptoms began to get worse.
"Well, then my eyes started to twitch, then my nose and then my mouth got worse, and then I was just like jerking on one side," she said.
After spending four days between two of Nashville's largest hospitals, she was sent home, still twitching uncontrollably.
Desperate, her mother went to the internet for help and read about two conditions.
One was called PANDAS, which stands for pediatric auto immune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with strep; it usually affects young children.
The other Sydenham's Chorea. They both hold one thing in common-- the strep bacteria.
Rahman, since she was a little girl, has suffered from chronic strep.
She took this information to her primary care doctor and was given an antibiotic shot.
"And that night everything quit, all of the jerking all of the movements. Everything quit with one shot," she said.
She said it was a breakthrough.
Up until the antibiotic treatment, she was being treated as a psyche patient.
In fact, she told Nashville's News 2 a psychiatrist tried to treat her while she was in the hospital.
Rahman said the psychiatrist told her to close her eyes and "think of a happy place to try and make me quit jerking," which she said didn't work.
There is little modern research of strep as related to neuropsychological issues, but Rahman believes the more exposure it receives, the better.
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Erica Rahman, from Dickson, says she developed uncontrollable twitches because of the strep bacteria.
