Scared about my daughters tics....any advice please ??

[inbetweener]

My 9 year old dd has had physical tics since she was about 6 or 7. They seem to last about 2-3 months then she launches straight into a new one. We have had throat clearing, neck stretching, arm and leg stretching, licking her lips to the point of them cracking and bleeding, licking the skin underneath the bottom lip so it gets red and inflamed and a huge red scab formed, opening and closing her mouth really wide etc etc...
The last month or so she has been lip licking and blinking at the same time, then humming accompanied the lip licking and now an actual noise kind of like " ur ur ur urrrghhhhh " while blinking rapidly and licking her lips.

I have spoken to her about it and acknowledged that she has to do it. She cant expliain why, she says her body just makes her do it. She knows I dont judge and she is comfy to do it around us, although occasionally she catches me looking and says sorry when she sees I have seen/heard it. I have told her she doesnt need to be sorry. We call it her things. Ie if I see her doing something new, like pulling her neck or something " I will ask her if she is ok and if its one of her things.

Im so scared for her, my heart is breaking. Im worried that its Tourettes. I was ok with the physical tics as to be honest I do some minor tics but the vocal ones frighten me as they draw so much more attention to it. I dont care a jot for me I just am petrified she will be bullied or singled out at school becuase of it.

Dh and I have discussed it and we do feel partly responisble. We separated for three months two years go and and although things are fine now ( we even have a new 8 month old ds ) I worry that the strain or stress on her started all this. I have googled Tourettes and what she is doing fits the bill, although there is also chronic tic disorder although Im not 100% sure what the difference is.

Does anyone have any advice or experience ? Is there anything I can do to help her. I am aware that these things cant always be "cured" but I am desperate to mnake sure she is happy and not picked on.

I might also add that she is very bright and quite popular. She is in the top sets for everything ( although finding maths a struggle at the moment ) and her recent school report had her language, liturature and presentation as outstanding.

Don't worry about it until it worries her. You can't make her feel better about it before it's started causing her any genuine problems beyond you worrying about it. And don't forget that tics are not so very uncommon and most people find that, whilst they are normally at their worst between the ages of about 8 and 12, they tend to diminish after that. Very few adults still have tics so noticeable as to affect their daily lives. My dh still has a couple of very minor tics, but unless you knew him very well and spent a lot of time with him, you just wouldn't notice them at all. He was teased about them a bit between the ages of about 10 and 12, but not really after that - they didn't make him who he was, they were just something he did. And my db was never teased about his tics - when he was picked on it was always about something else!!! As for whether the tics are one type of tic or another - even if it is Tourettes, that doesn't mean it is hugely serious and is bound to be detrimental to your dd in a big way. It is possible to have mild Tourettes - it does not have to be accompanied by uncontrollable swearing or tics of such severity that they hurt, or an increasingly obvious range of embarrassing movements and noises. It can actually be quite subtle and also tends to get better with age, not worse, in most cases. Most people who had tics in childhood are not aware of having any tics at all in adulthood (but then with the number of constant throat clearers, face scrunchers and blinkers I've met, how is one to tell whether they have sore throats and allergies, or tics?!).

ps I think if your dd's problems do start to distress her, relaxation therapy is one option, as whilst stress never causes tics, it can exacerbate them. Beyond that, your dd's problems would have to be quite severe, because you wouldn't really want to give her medication that might or might not help the symptoms unless they really were getting very distressing or interfering with her ability to get on with her daily life.

Thank you for replying so quickly. Your opening sentence does make sense actually. She doesnt appear to be worried, except a few times she has said to me that her neck is hurting and she is fed up of "pulling it " but apart from that she doesnt really mention it. I have tentatively asked if anyone has noticed or said anything at school and apparently only one boy asked what was round her mouth and she just said it was a sore and that was that.

Oh I absolutely know that only a very very small percentage of Tourettes sufferers have the swearing/expletive/causing physical harm part of the syndrome. I guess I was just worried that a vocal tic is much more difficult to hide/cover in real life. As I said in my OP I have a few facial tics/twitched myself that I manage.

I will wait and see. I cant help hurting for her though. I know how utterly exhausting it is pulling and twisting bits of your body all day long !