Meet Nancy O’Hara | Functional Medicine Pediatrician Specializing in the care of children with PANS, PANDAS and BGE

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nancy O’Hara and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nancy, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
As a functional medicine pediatrician, I care for children with neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders, a much underserved and forgotten group of children with ASD, PANS, PANDAS and Basal Ganglia Encephalitis. I also just published a book on this subject, Demystifying PANS/PANDAS: A Functional Medicine Desktop Reference on Basal Ganglia Encephalitis to help practitioners and families to deal with this illness. As a physician and parent, I work daily to listen to these families, to support these children and to discover ways to help them reach their fullest potential.

I also hope to help other practitioners, through a mentoring program, to learn how to understand these children and all of their symptoms, including anxiety, OCD, tics and brain fog. To really listen, to teach and to provide support to other families and practitioners, I hope to provide a guide and a light to turn these devastating diseases into treatable disorders.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Prior to my medical career, I taught children with autism. After medical school, Masters in public Health, residency, chief residency and general pediatric fellowship, I entered general private practice in 1993, and in 1999 began my consultative, integrative practice solely for children with special needs. Since 1999 I have dedicated my functional medicine practice to the integrative and holistic care of children with chronic illness and neurodevelopmental disorders such as PANDAS/PANS, OCD, anxiety, Lyme, ADHD and ASD. In addition to caring for these families and growing a practice including naturopaths, dietitians and therapists, I have also been privileged to train clinicians, both in the United States and abroad. As a culmination of decades of work, I have written a comprehensive guidebook, “Demystifying PANS / PANDAS: A Functional Medicine Desktop Reference on Basal Ganglia Encephalitis” and developed a mentoring and membership program to train other clinicians how to care for these children and families.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I have been privileged to travel the world in lecturing and training clinicians: places like Australia, Africa and across Europe as well as throughout the United States. For me it is not about where I live or where I go, it is the people with whom I connect, the families for whom I care and the practitioners with whom I work. I find my peace, my joy and my strength from the water, swimming, walking the beach and watching the ebb and flow of the tides. Come walk this journey with me.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Caring for children with neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric illnesses has been my passion for over 25 years. It all started at that time with one child and my introduction, during a time of my own personal infertility, to Dr. Sidney Baker, a mentor and friend, and one of the most brilliant men I have met and the grandfather of personalized, functional medicine. I am forever grateful to him.

I would like to thank, from start to finish in my career and my life, even before he was conceived, my son. He is my inspiration and motivation for all that I do and all that I am. He is a person with more character, compassion, and strength than anyone I know. More than the gratification of my work as a doctor, mentor and now author, I am most proud to be his mom.

Website: www.drohara.com

Instagram: @nhoharamd

Facebook: drnancyohara

Image Credits
Declan Saint Onge (for office pictures) DPWN Publishing (for book pictures)