tictoc

I had similar things happen to me Hey, tic toc, why you don't you 'forget' to sign in? Now, tell the nice people that you're sorry! I'm sorry..but...but...but..mom!

Hi. I'm pretty sure I don't have AS but have some behavioral characteristics similar to AS @ the 'social aversion' dimension. Generally aversive-affective, if you will, but acquired. So, the tension in me between the way I'm probably not (intrinsically) and the way I apparently was/am (acquired) was a puzzlement in my two marriages, to be sure (similar to your case, both known from the beginning). It had an effect on intimacy and in general, but I think that was secondary to the effect on parenting. I was hesitant to having children and my first wife agreed to that in our marriage but she changed and got panicky about never having children and we got divorced. My attitude evolved into apprehension and uncertainty, and I got re-married, well in love, feeling that I would be willing to have kids, but thinking that I'm not the fatherly type. I have 2 children (who know this story) and they assure me that I've been a good father. [Gee, you'd never know you're...whatever, you know, Dad?" I don't know, though........[still kind of wary/uncertain, see?. This part sux, I can tell you! But I think it's PT not AS; they're apparently hard to distinguish if you didn't know [as in placebo]. And, despite my reticence, I would welcome any questions you might have, because I know this is a difficult area. Best wishes + [[[[[[ ]]]]]].

Wyrd, I revised this because I had misinterpreted your posts-- don't know whether that's AS/not 'getting' t hings or AD/distracted, or was thinking about something else.

Good question! Sorry to say, I don't know but wonder how one could find out whether it is so? Is there a doctor in the house?

I feel compelled [see? already a kodakADD moment...] to respond, having just responded to both the OCD and TS/tics threads, although about PANDAS/GABHS. I've been through BP and schizo boards, too, tracking down ever more input on whatever this is I apparently have. Actually, the "official" [clinical] Dx I have is [Adult] AD[H]D [inattentive] Dx with possible BP [iI], although the latter has been mostly "ruled out" through therapy/experience, despite this kind of behavior and these blasted waxing'n'waning tics, which might indicate TS and OCD if heritable, otherwise probably something like PANDAS, or hunoz, borderline, split, or multiple personality disorder or something. Phhht! I am really not making light of this but just telling you what's going on in my case and saying that, yes, there can be more than one thing going on. In my case, there appears to be, anyway, eg PANDAS (which is close symptomatically to OCD/TS) and ADD (which is close to BP, which is near if not in personality disorder-land, which is near the -lepsies [epi-, narco-, etc.]) As I noted in one reply, the Dx for me is significant because one disorder implies heredity and another doesn't. But one could have both! ie I might have PANDAS and ADD or/and TS/OCD! Eek! But there are some objective things that help to differentiate these problems. For example, best as I can tell, PANDAS results in some kind of basal ganglionic pathology (engendering rheumatic fever in a more severe form), which affects one's psyche in various neuron[t]ic ways, eg/esp. tics ephemerally, OCD more monotonously, etc. Now, this area is very close to if not the or in the dopamine "power station" in your mental 'internet', so to speak, and glitches in its "[re-]uptake" through associated neuro-transmission faciloities can cause all kinds of problems, ranging from glitches, to static and distortion, all the way to service disruptions, brownouts and ultimately blackouts. And in ADD there seems to be something wrong in the area of filtering realtime inputs, focusing on a manageable subset, staying on track and recording and playing back programs. And these involve such etiologic, diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties, and they are so hard to verify, that it is all pretty much overwhelming, even to the pdocs. But what seems to be most perplexing and dissatisfying to people is that there don't seem to be many 'smoking guns'', like MRI, Xray, or DNA signatures for sure, although there are some MRI's of ADD and EEGs of epilepsy and some others that seem to be definitive if not precise with respect to diagnosis and therapy. And, in the year 2004, with all its supercalifragilistic biocybertechnology, it seems like there should be more certainty and efficacy in sorting this all out and being able to fix it for everybody who has 'it', right? Like you, I can appreciate this academically, but way much less as a patient/victim or, worse, a parent of one [or more!] And so I empathize with you and wish you the best!

Thanks, Alyssa! As a parent who probably had PANDAS [has! -- there oughta be an "Adult PANDAS" like "Adult ADD", if there isn't already.] and who probably has at least one kid who has same, I can maybe tell you something about all 3 [me now, me then; and my son, along the way]. Re: your story, right now I'm thinking about then, because I remember terrible ordeals from strep but there was no PANDAS then and barely penicillin; certainly not ADD. I even had our family doctor tell me that my tonsils couldn't be removed while they were inflamed (at the time of my appointment with him they were, but since they almost always were for a couple of years I never got them out, because by then they (the medical community) were saying that you should KEEP your tonsils because they actually DO have some beneficial value, apparently unlike your appendix, which I also have managed to keep until now]. My mom was pretty chagrined at the time but there wasn't much she could do about it based on what the doc said, so it was just grin it and bear it; she worked fulltime so it was very difficult for her to leave me at home in such a condition. But I was finally able to get some penicillin altho they didn't want to have kids get a tolerance to it, so were pretty stingy with it, and that was before amoxycillin. When my son had it in grade school, at least they had amoxycillin, which was a godsend I think. He didn't need/have the extensive Tx you did, but it still was painful for me while he had it because I remember how painful it was when I had it-- interminable, and it felt like someone was lacerating my throat/tonsils when I swallowed-- if you could! Even chix soup, for crying out loud!! And oh! the headaches and then the lethargic and exhausted recovery going back to school! Yikes!! Get me outathere!!! Then when I was in my early 20's at college I had a bad outbreak and an IVIG, which is similar to the pulse corticosteroid therapy you had. Well, that sure cured me (it was strep not "mono" (the "french kissing" disease? or maybe you don't/shouldn't know about that ?-)). But, girl, did those globulin needles looked B-I-G! and H-U-R-T! Well, it's wonderful that you've come back from the abyss, alyss! [sorry, but I couldn't resist blurting that out, what with my ADD/TS/and everything ]. Best of health!

Thanks to everybody for contributing to this thread. It has been very helpful to me, a newbieginner to find out alot and get going! I sent in an email to the ACN 'contact us' and won't repeat the whole thing here now but to say that I have an ADD Dx but have had ongoing (waxing'n'waning, as they say) tics that flared up recently after some stressful periods and several airplane trips where I caught that yukky airline 'air conditioning' syndrome (turns out, so did my sister), which flared up my latent strep condition, along with tics, and have gotten onto the "co-morbid" ADD --> TS/tics --> PANDAS/GABHS trail to here at this point . I feel similar to when I was faced with "accepting" that I had /have ADD in that I feel like I match up pretty much with PANDAS/ADD but how do you get "sure"? That actually makes a significant difference in that ADD is thought to be heritable while PANDAS is not. Hmm... So, I really have to think about this one for awhile; ask my pdoc; and, as Johnny #5 used to say, get MORE INPUT! Meantime, time out for a tic! Thanks again, and best wishes to everybody.

I see this thread wound down awhile ago but want to add that I think this was great, thanks very much to all, and have a happy [belated] new year!