Wombat140

I did take a highish dose of vitamin C for a while (1000 mg once a day, I think), and I don't think I noticed anything. But obviously 7500 mg is a rather different thing! I'll bear that in mind.

To be literal about it, "Syndrome" actually means a collection of symptoms rather than a cause. And to the best of my knowledge, medical understanding of what causes most cases of Tourette's Syndrome hasn't got far enough to make that a misnomer. So a professional that thinks Tourette's Syndrome accounts for the symptoms is being a bit illogical - the symptoms ARE TS, and what's causing them is still anybody's guess. It's a shorthand, not really a diagnosis.

At my library... are you joking? Harry Potter is about their limit. I'll have a look on Amazon if I get round to it. Unless perhaps you could somehow PM me a copy of the chart? That might be handy. I'm not sure how far to believe any of them anyway - "Fed Up" (the Failsafe Diet book) recommends giving each challenge a week, so are either of them right? Oh well, hope for the best. There are about three allergists in this country, if that's the same as an immunologist. OK, I'm exaggerating, but not much. I did get one of those IgG home testing kits, but I couldn't manage to prick my finger! I know, wet blanket. And then everyone said IgG tests are no good anyway and I should do an elimination diet... I can't win! Sorry I'm moaning, take no notice, the tics are worse than ever and I'm feeling a bit washed out anyway. I'm going to start taking my multivitamin/mineral again today, in case it's anaemia; there doesn't seem to be anything dodgy in that, I only stopped it to be on the safe side.

Update: I'm now on day 9 and a bit fed up with it. No sign of any result so far, except that I've been sleeping all night without waking up, for the first time in a few weeks. But then if everyone responded within a week, they wouldn't say to give it two weeks, would they? I hope it works soon, the tics are insufferable just now, I need a rest! Failing that, I need cake! What I'm not sure about is what order to re-introduce things, assuming I do get a result before the two weeks are up. Am I supposed to start with the most likely culprits (seems logical) or the least likely (which, if they turned out OK, would maybe give a bit of extra time for my system to clear before trying the big ones)? Does anyone know?

I hadn't heard about that. A quick web search suggests that 1) yes, it's just the same with organic rice, as the arsenic comes from the soil itself. Rice just absorbs it slightly more than most other crops. http://www.care2.com/greenliving/friday-freak-out-chicken-and-rice-and-arsenic.html With chicken, on the other hand, arsenic contamination is only a problem in some non-organic birds, which are actually fed traces of arsenic to make their flesh pink. I ask you. 2) they seem to think it's not enough to cause problems, unless you're eating rice as your staple diet. http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2012/02/21/on-rice-and-arsenic/

Natural isn't necessarily any guide to anything - deadly nightshade is natural - but I looked up the ingredients of Thim-J and most of them seem very innocuous, the kind of thing you might eat. Siberian Ginseng is the only fairly serious herb in there, and Wikipedia doesn't list any known side effects for that except that it interacts with the class of antibiotics whose technical names end in -mycin. So if he's not taking those I don't see any harm.

(Forgot to answer this before.) Sorry, haven't got Facebook - I waste too much time on the Internet as it is, so I don't want to encourage myself! But I'll post about the diet on here somewhere. You never know, someone else might find it handy. Had trouble finding out how to go about it myself. As for Asperger's, doesn't really make a lot of sense hoping it isn't that. It's not as if it's liable to get worse or anything. All the difference it makes is, either you have certain characteristics because of Asperger's, or you have them for no reason that anyone recognises - which can be a real pain if any of them ever cause problems and you need allowances made for them; a lot of places act like if you haven't some diagnosis to go with it, you have no right to have a problem! (Apologies for rant, been having to fill in endless forms about special exam arrangements. Think I've nearly got to the end of it now, though.) If you've been on Lovan for more than a month or so and it doesn't help, it might be time to ask about either a higher dose or a different medicine. A lot of people with OCD seem to do better on some SSRI drugs than others, even though they're meant to be fairly interchangeable. Not that I've actually taken SSRIs myself, but I know the drill from having used OCD web forums for so long! All the best, Wombat PS A lot of people reckon Einstein had Asperger's.

I've heard good things occasionally about some stuff called HayMax. I don't think that would affect the tics, because it hasn't actually any active ingredient. It's a sort of cream that you rub around your nose in the morning, and it's supposed to catch the pollen so that you don't breathe it in. Sounds unlikely, but I've come across people who said it works, so it might be worth trying. You can get it from Natural Collection, I'm sure other places too. Hope you both find some kind of solution, anyway! Wombat140

Thanks very much Chris. I really don't know what you're supposed to introduce when, that's why I'm posting - it's just that dairy foods are one of the most inconvenient things to cut out for me, what with being vegetarian, so I wanted to try them as soon as I could! Can anybody else comment on this, please? What about eggs, and wheat?

Welcome to the forums Jae. I've got a rather similar kind of thing myself, so I know how wearing it is. I've never heard the phrase "sensorimotor OCD" before, so thanks for putting me on to that one! I thought of it as somewhere between OCD and Tourette's. That does exist, according to some, there are articles about it here and here. I recently went to a psychologist for an official diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, and she insisted it was part of the Asperger's rather than a condition in itself, but I'm not sure she's right. Especially as yours sounds the same and you don't mention having Asperger's. I've never heard of anyone with that breathing thing before, except me. When I have a bout of that, I feel as if I can't breathe out completely, and keep breathing in really hard to try and get it out... sort of like I need to yawn. Does that sound familiar by any chance? I'd suggest getting a book on CBT for OCD, but I've never seen one that mentions this kind. Sorry I can't be more help. I'm planning to do an exclusion diet soon, to find out whether it's food intolerance (tics/OCD often are, by some accounts), so I'll keep you posted about that. Good luck! Wombat140

Hello all. I've decided to try an exclusion diet, starting with a few foods and adding others back one by one. (Haven't been able to identify any food reactions any other way, as my tics vary over weeks rather than hours or days.) I was thinking of starting with pear, swede, millet and quinoa - I hope nobody here reacts to THOSE? I know that's a fairly unbalanced diet, but I'm in good health (besides the obvious!) and it's only for a couple of weeks. It's so difficult to find any "safe" foods to start off with, that don't either appear as common triggers in the green book or have salicylates/amines/additives, especially as I'm a vegetarian. Please can you tell me how long it takes, in your experience, to see a reaction to milk, if milk is a problem and it's the first time you've eaten it for a while? And how long does it take to go away again? What about eggs, and wheat? It'll make organising the challenges a lot easier if I know all those. Thanks very much Wombat

I know, I'm not really going to... Just slightly hysterical from spending hours trying to prick my finger for an IgG test, and not doing it. I'm feeling a bit more rational now. I've seen that thread; thanks. (Have searched several times but can't find much else; "elimination diet" seems to be a search-engine-unfriendly phrase, even in quotes, which it ignores.) But as Alan said on there, if there's more than one food causing a problem and I cut out one but not the others, do you think I'd see any difference? Not criticising, by the way, just need to clarify things a bit. It's particularly difficult for me to tell what's affecting my symptoms, since they change only gradually over a few days or weeks. (Or is that a clue in itself? If so, to what?) We've already tried cutting out gluten and dairy completely, to no effect, but I'm not sure whether that means they're safe or that I'm just intolerant to them and something else as well. Also what do you mean by a food group? All starch foods? All dairy products? All foods from a particular family, like the nightshade family we hear so much about? Thanks very much for your reply.

Couple of extra points: If you take one B vitamin, it's as well to take at least a little of all the others and zinc too. They tend to be used together in the body, so that to use extra B6 the body has to use up some other B vitamins and zinc. Taking a decent multivitamin-and-mineral along with the B6 should cover that, from what I've read. The safety of B6 is fairly well documented, since it has a few recognised medical uses. According to the UK Food Standards Agency, taking too much can cause nerve problems ("pins and needles" and loss of feeling in hands or feet), so ask him to tell you if he gets that, but this is very rare at 50mg and clears up if you lower the dose. There aren't any other risks at any reasonable dose (below 1000mg). And welcome to the forum!

My tics and OCD are really bad at the moment, and I'm running short of things to try. One thing I don't know yet is whether anything I'm eating is contributing to the problem. My symptoms mainly vary from week to week rather than day to day, so despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to identify anything just by observing what changes when. So I think the only chance is a full elimination diet, cutting down to just a few things that are unlikely to cause problems and then reintroducing foods one by one. But what foods ARE least likely to cause problems? I know it's not just immune reactions you have to worry about, there are salicylates and so on. I haven't a clue, and I really need advice. Are there any foods that nobody on here has had trouble with? I'm about desperate enough to just stop eating for a few weeks if I can't find any other way of doing it - only my family would never stand for that. Thanks very much Wombat140

I think the difference between OCD and GAD is that OCD is restricted to a particular topic, or a few topics, whereas GAD as the name implies is general. Also I don't think GAD usually involves specific compulsions, although of course if someone's worried about something he's going to act generally more cautious about it. The not drinking sounds as if it could have been OCD, but I couldn't say without knowing why he did it (e.g. if it was because he was afraid of something). Will he still not tell you? (If indeed he can remember.) I'm very glad to hear that he's so much better, anyway! Shows that it's possible! All the best Wombat140

Putting OCD in with tic disorders certainly makes sense, since they're so often found together - although, as somebody said in the article, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and suchlike often go with OCD too.

Stinks, doesn't it. I've never had those exact ones, but sometimes I've had to check equally bizarre things. Have you tried Cognitive Behaviour Therapy? If not, do it if you can. It helps more people, more permanently, than any other known treatment - especially with fairly typical OCD like yours, with well-defined compulsions and "reasons" for them. It's quite well respected, too, so I'd imagine you could get it on insurance. Good luck! Wombat140

And does anyone know which foods are LEAST likely to cause problems, if you were going to start with a few things and introduce others one by one? It's more difficult for me because I'm vegetarian. I once read something about starting with just lamb and pears, but you can't live on nothing but pears and anyway I think he was just talking about standard allergies. I haven't been able to work out which foods are a problem, if any - my symptoms don't vary detectably from day to day, more like week to week. I did cut out gluten and casein for months a while ago, but it didn't help. Trouble is, that doesn't really mean gluten and casein are safe, does it? I could have still been eating something else that was a problem. (Sorry to hijack your thread, Alan.)

IgG is the name of the type of antibody they test for. As far as I can make out from Wikipedia, ELISA and RAST are indeed two different tests, but presumably they can both be used to detect IgG.

We were wondering about a blood test for IgG-mediated intolerances (ELISA test), but I've come across a lot of things that say there's no evidence that it indicates anything but what you've eaten that day. Have any of you got any use out of IgG testing? I wasn't sure whether testing for standard (IgE) allergies would be a lot of use, since those apparently have almost immediate effects whereas my tics are pretty much the same all day. Does that make any sense, or might it be an IgE-based allergy after all? Am getting to the end of my tether... Many thanks, Wombat

A box of SAMe I ordered has arrived, so I think on second thoughts I'll try that first (it seemed to help once before). But if not I'll ask my homoeopath. Thanks everyone.

Well aware of that, thanks - I'm seeing a homoeopath at present, wouldn't dream of asking her about it. (Though maybe I should, she might happen to know someone who knows someone. Alternative medicine is a small world.) Ozimum, thanks for the tip about the ARI, I'll try that.

Long time since I've been on here! I've been haphazardly trying different things for my OCD and tics for years. I haven't found anything that works, or been able to track down any avoidable "triggers", and I'm about sick of it. I want to know what's the matter with me. I'd like to try the allergy testing that "Natural Remedies for Tics and TS" speaks so highly of, and maybe some of the nutritional etc. tests too. The trouble is, I'm in England. Is there such a thing as an environmental doctor over here? If not, who do you go to for these things? (Or is there any way to do allergy or other tests by post?) By the by, do any of you know anything about low serotonin or low serotonin-precursor diets, and whether there's anything you're supposed to avoid besides bananas, dates, pineapples, plums and pecan nuts? How long do you have to wait to see an effect? Many thanks, Wombat

Hey, that happens with my compulsions/tics too! I've never heard it mentioned in quite that way before. I sort of assumed it must be something from the OCD side - even though I've never heard it mentioned for that at all. Thanks for the clue!

I believe it's now quite well accepted that essential fatty acid and/or zinc sulphate supplements quite often improve anorexia. But mainstream clinics never seem to actually DO it! I can't understand it. I mean, anorexia is still considered a horribly difficult one to treat. Why wouldn't they try this, if it might make things easier? It's not as if it's expensive or difficult. (Well, maybe EFAs would be, because they're oily and the patients wouldn't want to take them - but not zinc). The usual way of treating anorexia seems quite potty to me, anyway. The service is so under-resourced, they leave it until the patient is almost dead, then pull them in and force them to eat - which presumably doesn't improve their attitude to food. All too often they're sent home, better or not, as soon as they reach a reasonable weight, and start the cycle again. At least, that's how it seems to work in Britain. If only they could scrape together the money to start treating them a bit earlier, I reckon they'd save money in the long run. But they rarely can.