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Brainstorm Health Clinic

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Brainstorm Health Clinic

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.

24/12/2025

To our Brainstorm families.

This year you've navigated meltdowns, sleepless nights, endless research, and medical systems that don't always understand.

You've shown up for your children when it's been hard, when progress stalled, when nobody else got it.

That's not just parenting. That's fierce love in action.

Thank you for trusting us to be part of your journey.

Wishing you restful sleep, unexpected progress, and moments of real joy this Christmas.

Here's to 2026 bringing the breakthroughs your children deserve.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Brainstorm Health.

Stella & the team x

05/12/2025

Most parents can pinpoint the moment something shifts.

A child who handled mornings suddenly can't.
Bedtimes stretch longer.
Meltdowns arrive faster.
Recovery takes weeks, not days.

What looks like regression is often simpler: a small nutrient running critically low.

Thiamine.

It drives energy production.
Steadies the brainstem.
Anchors the autonomic nervous system.

When it falters, the body loses its buffer.
Energy drops.
Inflammation rises.
Behaviour unravels.

Children with autism, PANS and PANDAS drain thiamine fast.
The gap between what the body needs and what's available is where everything falls apart.

The signs aren't behavioural.
They're biochemical.

Want the research, a real case study, and what we do in clinic? Join my free newsletter. Going out tonight (5 DEC) 7:30PM UK time.

Link in comments or comment "news" and I'll send it to your DM.

03/12/2025

If your child has chronic SIBO and nothing seems to work - it's thyroid.

When T3 falls, motility stops.
Food sits. Bacteria bloom. The child looks reactive, anxious, inflamed.

Normal TSH means nothing here.
Not even close.

This is why nothing holds.
This is why it keeps returning.

We test what standard panels miss.

More in the link in comments 👇

02/12/2025

You are underestimating how violently a disrupted serotonin pathway can derail a child. When the gut breaks down serotonin too fast, the vagus nerve treats it as threat, not calm.

This is when sleep fractures, sensory tolerance collapses and behaviour turns volatile.

What looks like sudden mood swings or food reactions is often the body responding to this biochemical alarm system, not the trigger itself.

More in comments 👇

28/11/2025

A child can unravel completely while their MRI remains entirely normal.
That single fact changes everything.
The brain is not broken.
The regulation is.

Parents see the change first.
A child who connected now withdraws.
A child who coped now startles.
A child who spoke now struggles for words.
The Child, who was steady now swings between fear and agitation.

None of this appears on a scan because the structure is intact.
It’s the regulatory environment that has collapsed.

I came across a 2020 longevity study that should have rewritten the conversation.
Neurons under pressure don’t lose their abilities.
They lose access to them.
The chemistry shifts.
The signalling falters.

It means the problem is access, not ability - and access can be restored.

When inflammation settles, when infections clear, when the gut stops sending danger messages, when the metabolic load drops, the child returns.
Not because they relearn everything.
Because the brain becomes accessible again.

This is why the return of function can be sudden, precise and unmistakable.
Why a word reappears.
Why a fear drops.
Why a meltdown vanishes.
Why a child reconnect as if pressure has finally lifted from their nervous system.

Regression is not loss.
It’s blocked access to the abilities a child already holds.

Full breakdown in the blog.
Link in comments 👇

If you would to hear more from me, join my free newsletter
https://www.brainstormhealth.co.uk/subscribe/

26/11/2025

Winter hits.
Flare hits.
Everyone screams infection.

Sometimes it’s not.

Christmas trees.

Real trees = pollen
Mould
Microbes
Histamine fire
Mast cells explode
Brain inflames.

Artificial trees = dust
Stored mould
New plastics off-gassing VOCs
Chemical irritation

Decorations = particles in the air
Tinsel
Boxes. Old fabric,
All triggers.

Result looks identical to infection:
⚡️OCD s***s
⚡️Tics
⚡️Rage
⚡️Sleep wrecked
⚡️Sensory overload

Do not assume.
Remove the exposure.
Reassess.

Not every winter flare is a bug. Sometimes the trigger is hiding in plain sight.

If you want more of this kind of insight join my free weekly newsletter.

https://www.brainstormhealth.co.uk/subscribe/

24/11/2025

High serum B12 is not reassurance. It’s a red flag.

In autism PANS and PANDAS we see this pattern again and again:

The gut is inflamed.
Intrinsic factor drops.
Transport stalls.
B12 stays in the blood because it can’t reach the cells that need it.

This is not abundance.
It’s blocked utilisation.

And the signs show up fast:
Sensory overload
Speech stalls
Fatigue
Neuropathy
Bladder issues
Cognitive slowing.

Serum B12 doesn’t tell the truth.
MMA does.

When MMA rises the body is running on empty even while serum B12 looks high.

Fix the chain and the numbers fall into place. Support B2. Activate B6. Bring in lithium selenium molybdenum and iodine.
Restore methylation. Calm the gut.

If you want more of this kind of insight join my free weekly newsletter.

https://www.brainstormhealth.co.uk/subscribe/

21/11/2025

I see the same pattern in clinic every day.
Children crashing 💥 with mood, energy, sleep and focus while their gut and immune system are fighting fires no one has measured.

A new 2025 microbiome study shows the same pattern we see in testing every day:

🪫Low Bifidobacterium
🪫Low Faecalibacterium
⚡️High Escherichia Shigella
🔥Distorted Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes ratios,
📉 Satiety hormones dropping off.

The kind of gut biology that makes regulation almost impossible.

The kind of data that explains why so many children feel overwhelmed before the day even starts.

If you want to hear more from me directly, I break this down inside my free newsletter.

Real cases. Real data. Clear explanations.

This Sunday 23 November at 7:30pm UK time I am sharing the full study analysis plus 11 year old Jaxson’s story and how we helped him stabilise after years of decline.

If you want to understand your child’s biology without noise or confusion, use the link below to join my Free Newsletter. Link below.

https://www.brainstormhealth.co.uk/subscribe/

🎁 Free
🧠 Clinical experience
🔍 Latest research
💡 Practical steps for your child

PS: We never share your data with anyone and only send what I would personally want to receive: useful, clear, relevant information that actually helps.

13/11/2025

A white powder can change the night. Not melatonin.
Cornflour (in the the U.K. this is the terminology we use for white fine pure starch)

Professor Richard Kelley at the Kennedy Krieger Institute documented something important in his metabolic work.

Some autistic children wake repeatedly because their brain runs out of fuel before morning.

The final hours of the night are the weak point.

❗️Glucose drops.
❗️Glycogen empties too early.
❗️Mitochondria cannot hold the load. ❗️Cortisol rises to compensate and that cortisol surge becomes the wake trigger.

The brain forces the child up again and again.

Parents describe the same pattern:

⚠️Restless nights
⚠️Multiple wakings
⚠️Hard to settle back
⚠️Irritable on waking
⚠️Unsteady early morning
⚠️Behaviour dipping when meals are late
⚠️Crashing during illness

The organic acids often reflect it:

⚡️Raised α-ketoglutaric acid,
⚡️Shifts in lactate and pyruvate handling, markers that signal overnight energy stress.

🧠This is why Kelley used cornflour.
It digests slowly and releases glucose gradually for several hours.

🧠It helps prevent the early morning drop that drives the cortisol spike and fragments sleep.

Parents often see clear change:

✔️Fewer wakings
✔️Longer stretches
✔️Better mornings.

This fits the physiology.

Other slow release starches which may work:

❓Potato starch
❓Green banana flour
❓Tapioca starch (uncooked)
❓Ground lentil or chickpea starch
❓Oat resistant starch fractions
❓Partially hydrolysed guar gum

Full explanation is in my glucose metabolism article.

Link in comments 👇

09/11/2025

Your child is not broken.
Their body is protecting.
And it can heal. ⚡

Yesterday I was at the British Network for Functional Medicine conference.

The standout talk came from Dr Olivia Lesslar, Australian doctor and psychoneuroimmunology researcher. 🧠

She studies how the brain, immune system and hormones decide if the body feels safe or under threat.

For families living with autism, PANDAS or PANS this makes sense.

A cold, a food, a stressful day, a loose tooth, a bad night’s sleep and the body shifts into defence.

I wrote a new blog breaking down her key points.

Psychoneuroimmunology finally gives language to what we have done in our clinic for over a decade.

Calm the inflammation.
Restore safety.
Regulation follows.

Full blog: Link in comments 👇

05/11/2025

The least-known sign of low B2 (riboflavin)?
Cracks at the corners of the mouth.
Red, sore, slow to heal.

Other signs your cells are running low: ⚡️fatigue,
⚡️light sensitivity,
⚡️burning eyes,
⚡️migraines,
⚡️magenta glossy tongue,
⚡️poor iron or B6 activation.

Riboflavin isn’t optional, it’s the switch that powers everything.

Low B2 stalls methylation, blocks B12 and folate activation, and drains energy at the source.

✔️Check glutaric acid on an organic acids test (high means low B2).
✔️Rebuild with riboflavin-5-phosphate or a B-complex.
✔️Add magnesium and B6.
✔️Eat liver, eggs, lamb, and dairy if tolerated.

Watch for mould, it burns through B2 fast.

29/10/2025

Most adults now living with ME, chronic fatigue, long COVID, or unexplained immune crashes were never diagnosed as children.
But many would meet today’s criteria for PANS or PANDAS.

Same infections.
Same immune chaos.
Same neuropsychiatric flare patterns, just given different names.

A new Nature study makes you wonder why these patterns persist.

Researchers followed healthy adults from 25 to 90 and found the immune system starts to rewire decades before old age.

T cells shift into a TH2 pattern, allergic, autoimmune, inflammatory. B cells lose precision. Antibody control slips.

No raised cytokines.
No obvious infection.
Just silent reprogramming.

Could what we label as ME, long COVID, or “post-viral fatigue” in adults be the long arc of the same immune misprogramming seen in PANS and PANDAS children?

Not new disease. Continuing biology.

Study link in comment 👇

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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

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

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