pdez

Hi everyone! My 9 year old daughter started with tics at 7. I noticed she was blinking excessively and because I was so naive about tics, I took her to the eye dr. He said it was a tic and that eventually it would go away and gave some eye drops. About 2 months later she stopped doing it and I forgot all about it. At some point (we are still unsure of when), she developed a new tic. She would bend her neck backwards. At first I thought she was just stretching, but when she kept on doing it I asked and she said she just did it because her body wanted to. It seemed weird but again,naive, I paid little attention and eventually it went away. Now 9 1/2 my daughter has developed multiple tics and we are panicking! She said she started doing this the fist days of November. But it happened only sometimes and she payed no attention to it. She thought it was rare but nothing to worry much about. Two weeks ago I went to see her Christmas concert at school. My daughter is super social, has a great personality and had always shined at this kinds of events. Well, this time as I sat there videotaping her I noticed something was wrong. I saw my daughter moving her head really strangely, not as if following the rhythm but as if something was wrong. I could see she was super stressed out. When it ended I asked about the weirdness and she said everything was ok and I forgot completely about it. The next day we went out for lunch and she sat in front of me. That's when I noticed she would twitch her shoulder and her head. When I asked her to stop, she said she couldn't! We were terrified! She kept doing it over and over again and was unable to stop. I'm living abroad so I decided to call both my local pediatrician and my hometown pediatrician. They both said it sounded like a tic. I kept a close eye on her over the weekend and we noticed she was doing not 1 but many different tics. She will move head and shoulder, roll her eyes, stretch her back, contract her legs and her toes. First thing Monday I took her to the dr and he said it was tics. He referred us to a psychologist and said we would not pay attention to them and they would eventually go away. He said we needed to stop asking her about them, and she would eventually stop. The next days were horrific! Before she would do one by one, now she was doing them all at the same time. One would unlock the others. Her tics were worst when she was watching TV or in her iPad. Researching I came up with this amazing website and stumbled upon the book Natural Treatments for Tics and Tourette's. Immediately I asked her to stop watching the tv and using her iPad and the tics went from 50 per day to 10 or less per day. I also stopped her sugar and candy intake and in the past three days have seen a complete change and reduction in her tics and humor. Tomorrow we'll be going back home and I've scheduled an appointment with our pediatrician. I feel more comfortable asking him to run tests. What tests should I ask for? Strep? Allergies? This all new for us. Tics does not run in our families. And we do not know how to approach them. Please help. Any advice works for us! Five minutes ago my in laws called us through FaceTime. As my daughter came to the iPad to say Hi immediately she started ticking! She had not had 1 single tic all morning until she sat in front of the iPad for literally 2 minutes. My gut feeling is telling me she is light sensitive. Thanks for reading our post, any advice helps!!!