Frequently Asked Questions
Who we work with
Does my child need a diagnosis to come to Brainstorm Health®?
No. A formal diagnosis is not a prerequisite for working with us. Many of the children we support do not have one, or have one that doesn't fully account for what the family is seeing at home.
What matters is the clinical picture - the pattern of symptoms, the history, the biology underneath. We work with children whose presentations sit across a wide spectrum of neuroimmune and neurodevelopmental complexity, including autism, PANS, PANDAS, and ADHD, as well as children with behavioural difficulties, learning differences, chronic health issues, and presentations that have not yet been given a name. If something isn't adding up and nobody has been able to explain it, that is exactly the kind of situation this practice was built for.
My child has already seen multiple specialists. Is it too late to come to you?
It is never too late, and in fact most families who find us have already been through several clinicians before they arrive. That history is not wasted - it tells us a great deal. What we offer is a different kind of assessment, one that looks across multiple systems at once rather than at each symptom in isolation.
The children who respond best are those whose underlying biology is still active and addressable. In our experience, that is most of them.
The clinical approach
What is functional medicine and how is it different from what we have already tried?
Conventional medicine is exceptionally good at identifying and managing conditions within its own specialisms. What it is less well set up to do is look across all of those specialisms at once and ask why a child's biology is behaving the way it is.
Functional medicine starts with that question. We look at the immune system, the gut, infections past and present, the nervous system, mineral status, genetics, and how all of these are interacting. We look at family history. We look at what came before the difficulties began. And we build a clinical picture that tries to account for the whole child, not just the presenting symptoms.
For many of the families who come to us, this is the first time anyone has tried to join the dots.
What does testing involve and does my child have to have blood tests?
Testing is central to how we work. Without it, we are guessing rather than investigating. But it does not have to be difficult or frightening, and we always work with families to find the approach that is realistic for their child.
Not all testing requires a blood draw. Many of our most informative tests are non-invasive - urine samples, stool samples, and cheek swabs can all yield significant clinical information. For children where blood tests are difficult, we can often start with these and build from there.
Where blood testing is appropriate, we use it to look at immune function, inflammatory markers, nutritional status, and specialist panels relevant to each child's presentation. We also use targeted genetic testing - including methylation pathways, histamine processing, and nervous system genetics - as epigenomics is a significant part of how we understand each child's individual biochemistry. We use only highly regulated, specialist laboratories for all testing.
The testing we recommend is always led by what we are clinically looking for, not by a standard protocol applied to every child.
The team
Will we work directly with Stella?
Stella's caseload is currently full, but every family at Brainstorm Health® works within the clinical framework she has developed over thirteen years. She personally reviews every new case allocation, and all practitioners - particularly in their first two years - have their reports and protocols reviewed by Stella directly. Complex cases are discussed with her regardless of a practitioner's experience level.
The team does not operate independently. They work within a shared methodology, with intensive ongoing mentoring, and with access to Stella's clinical thinking on every case that needs it. The collective knowledge across the team is also significant - because of the volume and complexity of children we see, our clinical learning compounds in a way that a solo practice simply cannot match.
How do I know the practitioner allocated to us is the right fit?
Stella personally allocates every family to a practitioner, based on the information gathered at enquiry. This is not a random process - the allocation is made with the child's specific presentation and history in mind.
Every family then has a free discovery call with their allocated practitioner before any commitment is made. This is an opportunity to ask questions, get a feel for how they work, and decide whether you want to proceed. If the fit doesn't feel right, we will find someone who suits you better. It is rare that this happens, but we are completely open to it.
Do you work alongside our existing medical team or other therapists?
Yes, and we actively encourage it. Functional medicine works best as part of a wider picture, not instead of one.
We have a close working relationship with a medical doctor who supports many of our patients directly, including where pharmaceutical intervention is appropriate. We also have strong links with specialist neurologists, immunologists, and a range of therapists, and we refer to these colleagues when a case requires it. Knowing when to refer is as important as knowing what to investigate, and it is something we take seriously.
If your child is already working with other professionals, we will work alongside them wherever possible.
What to expect
How long does it take to see results?
This is the question every family asks, and the honest answer is that it depends on the child, the complexity of what is going on, and how much of the process the family is able to commit to. What we can tell you is what the typical pattern looks like.
The first changes families notice are usually the foundational ones - not always the ones they came in for. Sleep improves. The gut settles. The child stops picking up every illness that comes through the house. This tends to happen in the first one to three months.
Then come the regulation changes. Meltdowns get shorter. Rages come less often or recover faster. Reactivity to small things begins to ease. Parents often notice this before they can quite put their finger on it. That is typically months three to six.
Then come the developmental changes - language, engagement, social interest, skills that had been stuck beginning to move again. This is six months onwards, sometimes longer.
For children with active PANS or PANDAS flares, the flares themselves often settle faster, sometimes within weeks, when the immune picture is being properly supported. But the underlying biology still takes time to rebuild.
What does progress actually look like?
Progress in these children is rarely linear and rarely dramatic. It almost never looks like the before-and-after stories that circulate on social media.
What it actually looks like is small things stacking up. A parent noticing that their child didn't lose it over their socks this morning, and realising it hasn't happened in weeks. A child who starts wanting to spend time with the family. Bowels that finally work. A food list that starts to expand. Energy that wasn't there before.
Some children make extraordinary progress - regaining speech, coming off medications, reintegrating at school. Others make meaningful gains on a smaller scale. All of it is real, and all of it matters.
What we tell every family at the start is this. We are not trying to produce a different child. We are trying to help this child function at the top of their own range, without the weight of inflammation, infection, and immune dysregulation pressing down on them. When that pressure lifts, what is underneath gets to come through.
What affects outcomes?
Several things, and we are honest with families about all of them from the beginning.
Whether there is an active biomedical picture to investigate and address is the most fundamental factor. This is almost always the case in the children we work with, but it needs to be established through proper assessment rather than assumed.
Beyond that, outcomes are shaped by how committed the family can be to the process - the dietary changes, the supplement protocols, the environmental factors, the willingness to trust a timeline that is measured in months rather than weeks. Testing also plays a role - the more thoroughly we can investigate, the more precisely we can target what needs addressing.
From our experience, we have very rarely seen a child go through this process properly, with genuine family commitment, and have nothing change. What changes, and how much, varies. But change almost always comes.
Getting started
How do we make an enquiry?
The best way to get in touch is through our enquiry form. This allows us to gather enough information about your child before we respond, so that when we do come back to you, it is with something useful rather than a generic reply.
From there, if we think we can help, we will arrange a free discovery call with the practitioner we feel is the best fit for your child. There is no commitment at that stage - it is simply an opportunity to talk, ask questions, and decide whether you want to proceed.