kbt

Agreed, whatever works best with minimal side effects is the way to go. I'm just wondering if it's OK to stick with the small dose of supplements. My son actually showed no decrease and possibly an increase in ticcing when was taking half the daily max dose. I know correlation doesn't mean causation, but at the least it didn't reduce the tics. He seems to be ticcing much less with 1/4 the max dose. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this.

Thanks for the reply, Chemar. The D.O. was very helpful, indeed. He talked matter-of-factly about TS and encouraged my son to talk about it (he calls it his "habit"). Yet, I'm not quite convinced that homeopathy is the way to go here. I would be very interested in anyone else's experience in this area. Some other notes on my son's tics: Lots of physical activity seems to really trigger his coughing tic lately. And when he's angry or upset (he has 2 sisters and I can be a cranky dad ) he stops ticcing entirely. Got to be some emotional brain chemistry stuff going on there. As far as the supplements, is it OK to give the initial dose (1/4 max daily dose) for an extended period or should i keep increasing to the max dose for his weight? Should I expect a breakthrough at some point? Thanks again

I'd like to start by saying this forum is a godsend. My 9yo son started having eye rolling tics around age 7, about the time he started wearing glasses (he's slightly farsighted). Naturally I attributed the tics to the new glasses and after talking with several doctors and taking him to a few optometrists (none of which had a clue about TS or tics in retrospect) we opted that he only wear the glasses when reading. But once the tics started, they haven't stopped. For 2 years, the eye rolling and what I can only describe as eye "widening" were the constants, with occasional vocal tics like grunting, coughing, nasal exhaling and humming. My own research pointed to TS or trasient tics, but I could never find a doctor to confirm. We were told his coughing was from allergies and he'd be prescribed Zyrtec or the coughing was from asthma and he was given an inhaler, when all the while I just knew they were stabbing in the dark. I had 2 optometrists assure me he just needed a new prescription to "cure" the eye rolling. So frustrating as most of you know. Well, the eye rolling has all but stopped, but the coughing is the main tic now. He had a chest cold about 2 months ago and...voila!...cough tic. He can suppress it at times, like in class, but at home he relaxes I guess and tics all the time. A local osteopath who practices homeopathy finally diagnosed him with mild TS, for which I was relieved to have someone confirm my belief. He gave him one treatment, which did not produce any dramatic results. Hard to tell if it helped or maybe he was just waning, but it never went away. On his recomendation, we went to a neurologist to get a second opinion and she agreed with his diagnosis. No prescriptions though, as she didn't consider the case severe and suggested he may "outgrow" it. He doesn't have the associated OCD/ADD that many speak of and he gets good grades. He usually has one tic a time, but occasionally two. We've been trying supplements (Bonnie's TS Control) for about a week and I haven't noticed any difference in the tics, but his behavior has been unruley lately. I've read that taurine (from the magnesium taurate) can cause edginess, so we're going to cut back. Perhaps getting a nutritional urine test is in order, I'm not sure. Or maybe trying an Mg and B vitamin regime witout the taurine. Any help would be much appreciated. Oh, I'm going to try "no TV" for a while, too, but damn it's hard to keep kids away from screens! Thanks for listening, KBT