worried son might have tourrettes (sp)

pukkamum

My son is 6 and last year had an annoying habit of whistling constantly this went on for a few months but we did our best to ignore it and it went away. Just before christmas he started sniffing constantly despite not having a cold or any signs of a runny nose and making jerking movememnts with his arm. This is now almost constant and when i ask him about it he says he just cant help it and feels better when he does it. I have (maybe stupidly) been on a tourrettes website and these appear to be classic symptoms. I have a doctors appointment for him tomorrow but i am worried about being fobbed off (although my doctor is lovely) and am reluctant to mention having been on the website as i am sure doctors hate this kind of self diagnosis. Does anyone have experience of this or any advice i am so worried. Thank you.
P.s he is also blinking his eyes constantly so i am also taking him to the opticions

pulliptears

No experience, but Im sending you a huge hug. I know its easy to say but please try not to worry at this stage.
x

jinky67

Hi there
I would not worry about it too much
My son does all these stupid annoying things too eg playing with his ears,tugging at his hair and eyebrows,tapping his feet constantly,sucking his lip,cracking his fingers and toes etc.
Not all at the same time I hasten to add:D
He seems to go through phases of which one to do.
I mainly try to ignore it as pointing it out makes NO difference at all.
PS my DS is 15
maybe its a boy thing as my brother used to do things like this too

cocoluvsmummy

Hi, its been said before, but DO try not to worry.
kids do develop strange tics, they come and they go, some are just more noticeable than others. i had some as a kid that used to drive my mum nuts, but to try not to do the movement of the particular moment was really hard.. just couldnt do it, but at some point i must have stopped without realiseing it becuse i dont remember it after year5 / 6 at parimary school.
my daughter who is 13 also had a couple of these movements but was completely unaware she was doing them until they were pointed out to her, again shes grown out of it now as well.

That said if you are genuinely worried go to see your GP, but just say you are worried about these habits and can he suggest anyhting, rather than going in with the "i think my son may have.... " point of view, Gps dont tend to like this approach for soem reason

shazrobo

jinky67 wrote: »

Hi there
I would not worry about it too much
My son does all these stupid annoying things too eg playing with his ears,tugging at his hair and eyebrows,tapping his feet constantly,sucking his lip,cracking his fingers and toes etc.
Not all at the same time I hasten to add:D
He seems to go through phases of which one to do.
I mainly try to ignore it as pointing it out makes NO difference at all.
PS my DS is 15
maybe its a boy thing as my brother used to do things like this too

my sons do this too, they're 12

squashy

My Dh, Step Son, and Nephew all have this. My DH has never had it officially diagnosed as he just lives with it, but he tends to do it more when he is stressed or if he is concentrating on a computer game or something. He doesn't swear but makes little humming/tutting noises, head twitches, arm twitches etc. It just makes him, him! It doesn't give him any serious problems, we have a little laugh about his wobbly head every now and then, and it is quite useful as a stress indicator as he can't get away with the "I'm Fine" line lol

My step sons is very mild and we rarely see it these days, he's 14.

My nephew 12 recently changed schools as unfortuanatly he got beat up but i blame that on the school not informing the children. Apparently he was making pouty faces and a black skinned boy thought he was making racist gestures at him. The new school have handled it great though! Ask me anything hun x

morg_monster

My cousin (23) has tourettes with facial and vocal tics (noises rather than recognisable words). My brother who is the same age used to pick them up from him whenever we'd go stay with them (when we were little). They would go away after a few weeks. My brother also went through a long phase (1 year+) of rolling his eyes all the time when he was about 8 - unrelated to my cousin - which as you can imagine got him into a bit of trouble and a reputation with the teachers as a cheeky so and so (he was, but thats beside the point!)

Anyway my point is that my brother would have appeared to have tourettes when he was a boy, but he didn't, and it sounds like this is pretty common, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm sure your doctor will take you seriously. The internet browsing can be a plus and a minus - a plus when they already have some ideas of the diagnosis when they arrive, a minus when they already think they are dying of some obscure tropical disease! Most doc's don't mind too much

If you are worried about admitting that you have been googling, then why not make up a fictional child you knew at school who had tourette's and you thought your son's behaviour was similar to that? That's what I'd do!

mrcow

The only experience I have of this type of thing is that a boy who I went to school with used to do this (this was back in the 1980s so perhaps things weren't dealt with as well back then). He had a tick movement and used to make a funny noise when he shook.

He started doing it when I was in the equivalent of year 3. We were told as a class to ignore it as he was okay. This wasn't hard (I know as I had to sit next to him on my table). By the time we'd reached fourth year juniors (Year 6) he had grown out of it.

I don't know if he had tourettes (I didn't know what that was until I was older) but whatever it was seemed to go as naturally as it started.

ailuro2

Can't offer any advice on Tourettes, but just to say my old Dr. appreciated me looking up websites- she thought it great I was taking an active part in looking after my health, and wished more people would do it. When I suggested a little knowledge was a danhgerous thing she said No- it helps, because people do things like writing down a list of symptoms before they arrive at the surgery, which helps her AND the patient.

A member of my family when we were growing up used to have a series of nervous tics-shoulder shrugs, chewing her jaw etc., but that's all it was- she never really grew out of them either.

jinky67

pukkamum wrote: »

My son is 6 and last year had an annoying habit of whistling constantly this went on for a few months but we did our best to ignore it and it went away. Just before christmas he started sniffing constantly despite not having a cold or any signs of a runny nose and making jerking movememnts with his arm. This is now almost constant and when i ask him about it he says he just cant help it and feels better when he does it. I have (maybe stupidly) been on a tourrettes website and these appear to be classic symptoms. I have a doctors appointment for him tomorrow but i am worried about being fobbed off (although my doctor is lovely) and am reluctant to mention having been on the website as i am sure doctors hate this kind of self diagnosis. Does anyone have experience of this or any advice i am so worried. Thank you.
P.s he is also blinking his eyes constantly so i am also taking him to the opticions

what did the doc say?

roxalana

One of my brothers friends had similar symptoms esp the eye blinking, but never developed tourrettes - in his case the eye blinks were more likely to be caused by him playing nintendo for 5 hours a day!

I hope things turn out ok. Let us know x