HELP, DS and his throat clearing habit

[lollipoppi]

Please help, it's driving me insane

I've not said a single word about it to him, I don't want to make it an issue, but honestly it's constant, like every other breath.

I have to keep walking away.
I've offered him a drink, tried distracting, asking him questions to get him to talk to me, but he just goes straight back to it

Any tips? Am I doing the right thing by ignoring it?

[F1fichef]

I apologise for barging in on here but PPEATFRUIT I am so pleased to have found you. Am looking for the contributers to our bit on Are Supermarkets Getting too Greedy(5/10/10) Am going to try and add something to that or start a new thread. Please make contact!!

[ppeatfruit]

We use rice milk and organic soya milks also almond (it's much easier now).

[ppeatfruit]

bauhausfan Try getting your whole family to give it up too!

[Flywheel]

Agree with others saying it sounds like a transient tic. Dd started with throat clearing at about 3 - lasted a couple of months. No cold symtoms or other health concerns. Then a while later this heavy sigh - less annoying. Also lasted a couple of months. Haven't had any for quite a while now. Incredibly common and most are grown out of fairly quickly. Iirc, there's nothing to be concerned about unless they last for ages (more than a few months) or if several are occurring at once.

[GertrudeBell]

My DB had this and it signalled an allergy to cats. It was an irritation which sometimes signalled that an asthma attack was on its way.

[bauhausfan]

My DS (aged 8) alternates between the throat clear and the loud sniff. Like others have said, it drives me nuts. I suspect he has hay fever (both DH and I have it) and my entire family have terrible sinus/ear problems. My sinus problems have vastly (but not completely) cleared up since I gave up dairy.

[MmeMorrible]

And back to the point...

OP it certainly sounds like a transient tic as others have said. DS has them from time to time, we've been through throat clearing, sniffing, coughing, blinking and palm licking (yuck) in the ladt few years. Each new one arrives gradually and last a few weeks, maybe a couple of months and then disappears again just as it arrives.

Best thing is to pretend it's not happening, but it's hard when it's something irritating like sniffing or gross like palm licking.

[ppeatfruit]

noblegiraffe it's common because we succumb to brain washing and peer pressure to give dairy when it 's not needed.

[ppeatfruit]

Also When i was little we had a vile bottle of free milk every day at school.I was always ill with sore throats etc.

A lot of women my age have osteoporosis now and if their daily third of a pint of milk had worked they wouldn't have brittle bones at my age now would they?

[BertieBotts]

DS goes through phases of things like this. Just as we get used to them he stops and we suddenly one day notice that he's not doing it any more.

He's doing it now with sniffing, that's easier because we can just gently remind him to blow his nose which just interrupts the cycle.

Another one he had for a while was when he was walking he had to stop and stand on one of his feet with the other foot between every step. Took ages to get anywhere and was ruining his shoes.

I think it is an anxiety related thing, he's very like me.

[noblegiraffe]

So many children have runny noses because the common cold is quite common.

[ppeatfruit]

I said my GD and I used to help in her class it was in nursery and she's 7 now but she's never ill and has no allergies . Most of the others in her nursery class were drippy nosed etc.

Some people are ok with dairy but most are not IME.

[HermioneWeasley]

Ppeatfruit, ok I'm going to bite. How do you measure that your daughter is th healthiest in her class?

[ppeatfruit]

lollipopi SOOOO many children have runny noses etc. there's protein and obtainable calcium in all green and coloured vegetables (the calcium in milk is not able to be digested efficiently by most humans because of our lack of a particular vitamin ). I have no allergies or health probs and i haven't eaten dairy for many years it's not hard to find different food groups. Also the Japanese and Chinese nations never touched dairy, now they have all the asthma type allergies that the we in the west have WHY? because they are having dairy.

The huge dairy industry has done it's brain washing very well hasn't it? In Flora Thompson's book Lark rise to Candelford she talks about the late Victorian DCs who didn't have milk and suffered no ill effects at all.

[CustardFromATin]

If you do cut out dairy just make sure you try it again later to be sure that was the cause - we see kids whose parents have cut out whole food groups (often dairy, but also glutens, different vegetables, meats), but actually the supposed symptom was just one of those childhood things that cleared up on its own... But because it all happened at the same time, it seemed that the diet was the problem, so in the meantime the child has been on a restricted diet and often the parent has been run ragged trying to find good food alternatives, be the snack police at birthday parties and the like, all totally unnecessary.

Hopefully it is a transient tic and will go away! ds1 got a whole string of them from throat clearing to blinking and it was very unnerving at the time, though at 4 we haven't seen any for a while.

[Standinginline]

I have no advice ,but had to read this out to my parents as they constantly got wound up by my throat clearing. I don't know why I did it ,and I sometimes do it now, though not as often. Very interesting about the hayfever though as I've always had problems with sinuses ,"colds" etc... And wondering it was that ...

[LeBearPolar]

DS has had a whole series of tics and I think throat clearing was one of them - can't remember to be honest. He has grown out of most of them now - he's 11 - but still has one where he shrugs every now and then. You have my sympathies - it's infuriating - but nothing but time and patience helps, I'm afraid!

[lollipoppi]

Ppeatfriut, but surely dairy is part of a healthy balanced diet in children

[ppeatfruit]

The runny noses, coughs, throat clearing etc. are not normal; It's the casein in milk; it's a glue (that's used actually in the manufacture of glue).

Humans are not calves, interestingly cows don't drink milk to stay healthy. So after the age of about 1 yr. most humans could do well without dairy. In fact my GD is the healthiest child in her class and she is a vegan.

[noblegiraffe]

My DS has this at about the same age. It went on for a few months and really niggled at me. I took him to the docs who said it was probably a tic and there was nothing really to be done about it.

It went away on its own.

[lollipoppi]

Good to hear I'm not the only one finding it irritating, I feel quite bad being annoyed with it!
I might take him to the doctors for allergy testing anyway as it will help us rule out some triggers for his asthma especially if it has anything to do with hay fever

[nestee]

My ds did this for a while too, its a tic and perfectly normal. He knew he was doing it, and it annoyed him too. It went away eventually. Then he developed a cough one for a while. Grrrr. Its horrible to think it may be nerves or something but I think it's just a normal part of development.

[ThreeLannistersOneTargaryen]

As PJ67 says, they do grow out of them. Doesn't stop it bring very irritating at the time, though. At least they don't tic while they're asleep (unlike a physiological cough), so you (and they) get a break.

[ThreeLannistersOneTargaryen]

It's transient tic bingo at our house and DD is the transient tic queen. The throat clearing one has been with us, on and off, for a good while now. It drives me potty!

[Iswallowedawatermelon]

I would be suspecting some sort of food intolerance. Wheat or dairy.