New movement/behavior in my 6 y/o daughter

[AmySLP]

A few days ago my daughter had exacerbation of tics during a Girl Scout mtg. where another little girl was sick (we don't know if it was strep). Since then I have been noticing her throat clearing tic & simultaneous eyeblinking. But new is where she holds up her right hand in front of her eyes as if to look through it. Sometimes she curves her hand like a backward letter "C" & other times she spreads the fingers and brings it closer to her eyes as if to change the perspective of how she is seeing something. At first, I thought it was just experimenting with her seeing different objects, but then I realize that it comes following her throat clear & eye blinks. I asked her yesterday about it, to see if it's something she was aware she was doing, and she replied that she just had to do it-looking through her hands. Is this OCD or a complex tic? I've always struggled when journaling her symptoms if she had OCD symptoms, as they are not the obvious behaviors. What would you consider this? A complex tic or OCD?

 

thanks, Amy

[MIAS_MOM]

My dd has various hand jestures, one is "touching the air just right" another, touching objects then smelling that hand, followed by her other hand that did not touch it, and our psych. refers to these as OCD. She has a verbal "cluck sound" that our psych calls a tic. I am totally with you on this question as I have been confused myself as to how to identify between the two, OCD vs Tics. Some of her other docs says "tics" and other times they say "OCD" almost like they mix them up ?

[SarahJane]

At times, my son will complain of double vision & will look thru his hand like that. I assume it is PANDAS vs. something else since the basal ganglia does play a role in vision. He doesn't have it all the time, so I assume it's a flare of some sort. And by not all the time, I mean it lasts for just a few minutes or so & then he's fine. He is due for a vision check, but I do not notice any other signs that he needs glasses or anything. When PANDAS hit last year, he would squint his right eye, which might have been a tic or a vision thing...couldn't tell & didn't know we were dealing with PANDAS. Did get his vision checked then & it was perfect.

[AmySLP]

We do see a pediatric developmental optometrist yearly for convergence insufficiency disorder, which seems to be improved based on last appt. Yesterday, she was trying to stop this behavior is the midst if she saw me watching her-I feel badly for asking her about it the other day. I have never asked her before about her movements and now I'm afraid I've made her aware or anxious about them. When she was trying to keep her right arm still (putting her arm straight and palm flat on the chair) she had lots of tremor like movements in it. Dr. B changed her meds from Augmentin ES once daily (combo of Augmentin 400mg & 250 of ammox) to just Augmentin 2x/day. She had a blood draw for myco P. b/c my little one had very high numbers and is being treated for such. Dr B did not put my 6 y/o on Zith until results came, b/c it has not improved the tics before.

 

When pointing out these movement disorders to someone the other day as I explained that these are symptoms of PANDAS, she said--"well that's not so bad." Compared to how bad it could be, based on other stories I read here, that's true. However, my daughter has been on ABX for nearly a yr. What would she be like without them? It's really hard to watch your child have all these quirky INVOLUNTARY movements.

[philamom]

A few days ago my daughter had exacerbation of tics during a Girl Scout mtg. where another little girl was sick (we don't know if it was strep). Since then I have been noticing her throat clearing tic & simultaneous eyeblinking. But new is where she holds up her right hand in front of her eyes as if to look through it. Sometimes she curves her hand like a backward letter "C" & other times she spreads the fingers and brings it closer to her eyes as if to change the perspective of how she is seeing something. At first, I thought it was just experimenting with her seeing different objects, but then I realize that it comes following her throat clear & eye blinks. I asked her yesterday about it, to see if it's something she was aware she was doing, and she replied that she just had to do it-looking through her hands. Is this OCD or a complex tic? I've always struggled when journaling her symptoms if she had OCD symptoms, as they are not the obvious behaviors. What would you consider this? A complex tic or OCD?

 

thanks, Amy

y

Edited April 29, 2012 by philamom

[lmkmip67]

Oh wow, my son does the hand touching and then smelling thing. I thought that it was odd. I am getting confused on what is a tic and what is an OCD ritual. lol

[nicklemama]

It is sometimes hard to discern between tics and ocd. My DS7 also has the touching/smelling ocd/tic. I've been thinking it was an ocd. If you are/were a Sat Nite Live fan, remember the character who played a quirky girl who touched and smelled her fingers? My DS smells his fingers in the same manner....both hands come to his nose together and he smells the finger tips. I can see the actresses face but I've forgotten her name.

 

My son also has a pattern of touching his face. Tic or ocd. Not sure.

 

Ok, my ocd was driving me crazy so I had to look it up....Molly Shannon playing Mary Katherine Elizabeth. She had a smelling ocd.

Edited April 11, 2011 by nicklemama

[AmySLP]

Someone private messaged me yesterday in response to this and told me to check for lyme (well we drew labs for this 2 weeks ago)--just got the call today that my daughter (actually both daughters) have reactive bands to Lyme with elevated IGG & IGM. Can't imagine how-just ordered Igenex kit.

 

So confused as to how this person who told me to check for Lyme had some inkling. Is there something with the movement disorder that makes one think Lyme? My daughter did c/o joint pain/leg pains at the start of all this.

 

Now I feel more lost than ever in all this-