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Old 08-24-2009, 11:41 AM
 
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Just wondering if there were any parents here that has a child with ts. My 10-year old son has been diagnosed with mild-to moderate tics and is currently on Clonidine. It helps some, but makes him very sleepy. We noticed that whenever he gets excited, or stressed that they are much more noticeable. He doesn't really have any loud outbursts yet and tells me that he holds them all in at school. Its when he gets home that they are very prevalent. His neurologist told us that there are meds out there that can completely eliminate the tics, but it would completely change our son into someone that is not him! We sure don't want that!
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Old 08-27-2009, 12:47 PM
 
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My son was diagnosed with "chronic tic syndrome" when he was only a little younger than your son. He had no verbal tics, so Tourettes was ruled out. However, his tics were very prevalent, especially under the circumstances you mentioned, excitement, stress, etc.

He was teased about them, so we agreed to medicate him. BIG mistake. Every drug the neurologist tried made him lethargic. In turn that caused him to gain weight. He hated the way he felt, and the teasing changed from being caused by the tics to being focused on the weight gain.

We finally made the decision to teach him coping mechanisms. We were lucky in that the school supported us 100%. The parents of the worst teasers were called in for meetings. The teachers kept a close eye on him, and he learned to just shrug off any comments.

Once he stopped feeling like a victim, the tics lessened. He still has them on (rare) occasions, but they mostly manifest as a little twitch in his cheek. The arms and leg thrusts are gone.

I can understand trying medication for those with verbal outbursts. For anything less, I just don't think the cure is any better than the disease.
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Old 08-27-2009, 01:37 PM
 
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Mine has motor tics (no verbal ones). We aren't doing anything about them right now. He's a really anxious kid and we are starting with working on his anxiety to see if getting it to a manageable level will show global improvement for him.

His tics have been with him pretty much all of his life.

Our pediatrician has a family member with TS and she told us he takes meds for it only when he wants to do something where the verbal tics would be obtrusive, like if he wants to go to a movie or attend a lecture or something where noise in the audience is really noticeable.
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