Wow! I just started reading the Tics and Tourette's book and was directed to this site and have been reading all afternoon! I have read through all the newbie info threads and so forth, but I am still so overwhelmed! But at the same time, I am very excited to have found this place and so much info that makes so much sense to me!
Here is where my story starts. I will try to summarize briefly. My son is 6 now, but at the age of 2, he developed what we called his "fake cough". It seemed to happen when he was excited (mostly before he spoke). We shrugged it off. Fast forward to age 5 and I took him for a check-up at the pediatrician. The dr. notices his "cough" and immediately labels it a tic. He briefly tells me about tics and I'm told to watch them. Over the next 3 days, my son has an explosion of every classic tic I have read about. After many months and much research, I decide he probably has TS. When he started school (right before age 6), his tics were worsened with stress. Between that and the fact that he was very bored and frustrated from not being challenged, I pulled him out and started homeschooling him. He recently saw a neuropsychologist who finally made the official diagnosis of TS.
As I started reading the book and these threads today, so many things made sense to me. The whole allergy thing just clicked! My youngest son (who is almost 2), was diagnosed with food allergies at 13 months. He is allergic to corn, eggs and soy. I am sure there are other things, but they wouldn't do a full screen on him at this age. We are constantly struggling with his terrible diarrhea reactions. On the other hand, my oldest has been pretty much constipated since birth! Besides the first 2 weeks that I had him on regular formula and he had diarrhea and bloody stools, they told me to switch him to soy and it has been constipation ever since! He was prescribed Miralax ( over a year ago) which I give him when I HAVE to (as I am not a big medicine person). But I have always felt like there was an underlying allergy thing going on there, but his Pediatrician blew me off. At the age of 1, he started having an itchy rectum and we couldn't get a diagnosis from the doctor for that one either. Now I am thinking the Candida overgrowth might be the problem there!
My questions are this: What is the difference between an Environmental Physician and a regular Allergist? I think at this point, we need to have him tested because I think there are definitely some allergies there. And if I wanted to start him on a Probiotic supplement, how much and how often do I give it? And are certain ones better than others?
Any more advice or thoughts would be appreciated. It has been so nice to read these post this afternoon and feel that I am not alone in this and that there may be hope in helping my son. He was crying this afternoon in frustration of his tics, and I just wanted to find a way to help him any way I can.