Throat clearing tic

[englishrose1234]

Hi mumsnet

I'm looking for some advice / experiences of others. My 3 year old son has recently developed a throat clearing tic. It happens mainly when he is tired or watching tv but has been every day for about a month now. Sometimes it's once every 10 mins or so. Other times it's literally every 3/4 seconds. I'm scared for the future in case this continues and is present for him starting school. Not only would it be a massive distraction to others in his class but might impact friendships etc.

Hi NeonHalo

Was it a throat clearing tic? How often did he do it?

@englishrose1234 yes it was throat clearing. Particularly bad whilst watching TV (would be every 20 seconds at one point). It stopped as rapidly as it started. He’s had a few other tics but this was the most prominent. He’s totally neurotypical by the way.

Thanks for your reply xx

Hi, I joined Mum‘s net because I wanted to add my story to help others as I was very worried. When I was looking for advice on the Internet, I ended up on here to help solve a query I had about my sons throat clearing. The long and the short of it is that it all started when he was approximately five years old. He would start clearing his throat whilst watching television when he is bored. Perhaps even when we was just in the car and there was nothing to be said it came to me that he was doing this just to fill in gaps of boredom, and it was a way of soothing himself, I guess, I was worried this was a tick that was going to grow and get worse but it wasn’t he is now the 13 and this stopped many years ago when he was about seven. Luckily nobody ever really noticed or mentioned it but I can assure you that it will go away and it is just a phase some children go through, I was very worried like you might well be, but please rest assure do not bring it to their attention. Just let him get on with it and it will go away. I hope this goes someway to making you feel better, but I know that if I had read this when I was worried it would’ve helped me have some confidence for where this is going. There was another child that we knew that was constantly sniffing and this has proven to be a similar habit but not a tick and this has also resolved itself. Good luck. Regards