Tourette's

[feelingmiffed]

Hi,

We are due to see a child psychologist tomorrow, DS (7) has been having tics for approx 18 months. They can vary between eye roll, head jerking, arms lurching, grunting, making a noise like an internal hiccup, coughing. He always has at least one motor and a vocal tic at any one time. Currently he's head jerking and grunting.

I feel he's going to be diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome , so I want to be prepared. Are there any questions we should ask the psychologist?

It's really rubbish as he's currently also going through chemo, the stress of which I'm sure is making his tics worse

[MrsBobDylan]

Am sorry you are going through so much at the moment.

My DS is 8 and got a diagnosis of mild tourettes at 6. He also has type 1 diabetes and frankly, the tourettes just felt like another kick in the teeth.

When his tics are bad, it's like he's a puppet to his own brain. He gets sore in the areas when the tics are unrelenting and I have found massage great for helping relieve muscle tension and giving him a different physical sensation to focus on for a time. I'm not massage trained, I did a 6 week course in baby massage and took it from there.

The head jerking is a difficult tic as it's hard work on the body and interrupts any activity which requires focusing ahead, such as walking. My DS has on occasion been head jerking and wandered off the pavement into the road or bumped into a parked car!

We talked to school and they seat DS somewhere he can do his tics without kicking another child. The thing we find now is that it affects his concentration at school but we are trying out some ideas to help him.

Good luck for tomorrow - a diagnosis will be useful for talking with teachers etc and helping your DS.

[feelingmiffed]

Thank you both so much, that's really helpful.

In some ways I'm dreading today, in others it will be good to start getting to the bottom of it.

I just want to wrap him up in cotton wool, this just feels like another kick in the teeth