Hi, I’ve never been involved in online forums before relating to my tourettes – but things are just getting ridiculous now and I need some advice.
As I mentioned above in the title I’m 39 years old and have had tourettes since I was about 5.
I didn’t know I had tourettes until I was about 25 and went to see some tourettes specialist – for years I just thought I was a rather odd fellow.
It turns out after testing that I had a number of different tics from head nodding to word re-forming and number re-arranging. There is grimacing, jaw slamming and quite a few others.
Anyway things were always manageable and never too bad – that is how I got by.
Then about 3 years ago I had a bad 3 months where it just blew up for no reason. Then it suddenly stopped again.
Of course I still had some symptoms (they never go) – but it was pretty good.
Then 2 months ago I had a very specific type of tic start. I have problems with both of my jaw joints due to accidents I had when I was younger – so both joints are not in a good way. This tic is a deliberate slamming of the teeth together and opening the jaw in very uncomfortable positions. It’s like my body is trying to dislocate the jaw and cause me serious problems. So as well as being a nuisance – this thing is actually being deliberately hostile to me – it’s actually trying to hurt me. And it’s increasing in intensity and there seems no way to be able to stop it. I have to wear a splint in my mouth at all times and everything started getting out of hand when my old one broke and I had a new one put in.
I run a finance company and just can’t go to meetings anymore – as quite frankly I look ridiculous as halfway during a conversation my mouth just hangs open whilst I try to close it – then I open it and slam it closed again. You might think well that ‘s a bit odd – but okay. But when in a 5 minute conversation it happens 40 times it gets ab bit much.
Not really sure what I’m hoping to achieve by writing this – but it wanted to come out. Next week I’m seeing a neurologist, I’m getting test done for allergies – can anyone think of anything else I should be doing or testing for? From what I’ve read tourettes should get better with age – not worse. Thanks for any responses.
