the important thing to remember about tics is that they wax and wane - often for no apparent reason, so just because they're bad at the moment doesn't mean he'll be like this forever
ds1 has tourette's and asperger's and will suddenly get a new tic out of the blue, do it loads, and then a few weeks later it's disappeared
when he was 4 he had an awful one for about 3 months - it was a sharp intake of breath every few seconds, really loud and it sounded like he had terrible asthma - he couldn't get through a sentence without stopping several times - however after a while it just went, and thankfully that one's never been replaced
ds seems to have a repertoire of regular tics that cycle round and some that are there all the time, although we can have periods where they're so low-level you can almost forget he's got them
sometimes ds gets very annoyed with his tics, especially if it's something like coughing which can hurt, but a lot of the time ds actually feels very positive about them - he realises he wouldn't be the same person without them
the other thing to remember is that it's only tourette's if both multiple vocal and motor tics have been present for at least a year without a break of more than 3 weeks - lots of kids have transient tic disorders which come on for a while and then just disappear and never come back. Ds1's been ticcing since he was 2 and he's now 12 so I think we're in it for the duration!
I hope your ds feels better soon