Going to a Psychiatrist for the first time. What should I expect?

[dolphinspirit]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the board. It's comforting to know there are so many great people out there dealing with similar issues.

 

I'm 31 years old and have had terrible tics since I was a kid. They always involved doing a weird motion with my head, pressing in on my stomach while holding my breath, making my eyes go funny directions, and I could go on and on. They always changed over time. I have always done a lot of rituals too like pressing down on light switches after they are already off and emptying a cup after it's already empty. The rituals used to be worse but seem to have gotten better with age. Anyway, I'm a business person and it seems like as an adult, I do tics that aren't as noticeable to people, but that hurt me. I've been doing one for a long time now that involves a really abrasive holding/sucking/forcing my breath while pushing my jaw out. I have some tissue damage to my jaw and need this tic to stop or change. The pain from my jaw makes me go to bed sometimes because I just can't stop doing it and I have headaches all the time.

 

I went to a psychologist a while back and he said I have Chronic Motor Disfunction (since I don't have a verbal he said it wasn't tourettes). He was no use and was using me as a guinea pig since he didn't specialize in tics. So now I'm going to a psychiatrist next week (I live in St. Louis and supposedly we have one of the top motor disorder centers in the country). Anyway, I was wondering if anyone could tell me what to expect. I tried the psychologist first because I knew they couldn't prescribe medication. I am so worried a psychiatrist will want to put me on drugs right away and I'm so scared they will make me not think clearly.

 

Any advise or shared experiences would be appreciated. I wish all of you luck and peace.

 

Sandy

[Chemar]

Hi Sandy and welcome

 

 

hopefully you will have a psychiatrist that doesnt see the answer to everything as being a prescription, but honestly, that is rare!

 

we found that most of them do nothing much more than write scripts!

 

we had only one psychiatrist who listened and discussed and gave helpful advice, without medication.

 

I cant address the problem you have and what kind of treatments help it. Perhaps a medication is necessary....I dont know. But I would really advise you to ask questions about any med, and what the side effects are etc...and also do your own research on Google as to adverse effects of the med. that way at least you can make an educated decision as to whether the med will be worth taking.

 

stay in touch and let us know how things go!

[Giselle]

Hi Sandy! Welcome to Latitudes! I'm so glad you found us. From what my son's doctor says "tics are tics" and he told us that whether or not there was a vocal component was only a matter of classification and irrelevant. An Irish Wolf Hound and a Scottie are both dogs - just different. He was telling us this when we first went to see him and my son had motor tics only and we were so worried about it being Tourettes. Well the vocal tics came and there truly was no difference - they were both tics. And we did the same thing for both.

 

I can see why you found us - your reluctance to take medication. That is how I found this board as well. We had an experience that made me realize that perhaps medication wasn't the answer. We had taken him to an amunsement park and at some point during the day he ordered a strawberry icecream cone. Within minutes his tics went off the charts - I would have thought he was having a seizure had I never seen the tics before. I realized if something he ate could make them that much worse then perhaps something he didn't eat could make him that much better. And it was true. We had allergy testing done (delayed food allergy testing, not the scratch test - although we had that done too but it wasn't near as illuminating). Turns out he was allergic to gluten (wheat, oats, rye, barley, etc), casein (milk protein), corn (that's a huge one), tomatos, bananas, soy, dyes (no surprise), cashews, and a few others that aren't nearly as impactful. When we eliminated these from his diet it eliminated about half of the tics. We then found out that he had yeast overgrowth pretty bad - we dealt with this and still do as this one is a toughy but you get to know the signs when there is a bloom. We heavy metal tested him and found he was high in lead which corresponded to a deficiency test which told us his deficiencies. He was having a real tough time synthesizing and processing B6 (now he takes P5P which is one step further broken down and this works). Because of this B6 problem his copper to zinc ratio was out of whack and this leads to a build up of lead. Lastly we tested his neurotransmitters and found he was really low in dopamine, serotonin, and epinephrine - finding this out really helped with his OCD and as a result with his tics too as it seems many of his tics are OCD in nature as he has to "get them right". As you read people's stories and questions here you will find that people come to their tics from different avenues. Some have pyroluria (we tested for that but he didn't have it - but many here can tell about that. Many have food allergies, some have the B6 problem with the yeast, PANDAS and many other things.

 

I think of it like a cold - there are hundreds of viruses that cause the human cold but our bodies can only do certain things in response to the cold - conjestion, itchy eyes, sore throat, cough. It's that way with tics -the body can only do so much in response to what it feels are assaults or toxic loads - just find those burdens and eliminate them and the tics reduce or may be eliminated.

 

I totally think you should go see this doctor, and as Chemar says, be completely in control of your care - evaluate what he/she says, the medication they might possibly prescribe, etc. Then perhaps get the opinion of another doctor - one like many of us here use - either an Integrative Doctor, DAN Doctor (Defeat Autism Now), or an Environmental Doctor - they all use traditional testing but follow a protocol that looks at the things I've described above like allergy, deficiency, toxic burden. Read all that you can here and over at Brain Talk Communities http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=253 While over there you might like to go out of the Tourettes forum and investigate the many others to see if they apply to you. And please keep in touch and let us know what happens!

 

Good luck on getting off to a good start on this new journey!

Giselle

P.S. My son, whose tics were very severe, now only tics just before, while and just after he gets sick! Yeah!!!!!

[Guest]

Hi Sandy. Welcome to the board.

 

I used to see a psychiatrist because its the only doctor my parents could find that knew something about ts at the time. He prescribed about every single medication available for ts including haldol to me. I took the alternative route and no longer see him. I've been medication free for about a year and after I got off the medication I stopped seeing him and only see 2 alternative doctors. I do have a doctor that I'd recommend to you. He's one of the alternative doctor's I see and he's very good. He does allergy test, works with candida, vitamins, chelation, etc. I don't use him for the allergy issues as I already have another doctor who works with me for that. He doesn't like using medication and he has treated other patients with tics/ts before. He's in Kansas City, MO and being that St. Louis isn't too far from Kansas City you may really want to look into seeing him. He's worth the drive that's for sure. He also does phone consultations after seeing you. After my experience with being taken from doctor to doctor when I was a child I'm not too fond of doctors. However I really like my 2 alternative doctors and feel very comfortable when I have an appt. unlike the psychiatrist/other doctors my parents chose for me as a child.

 

Here's his information (he's listed on the American Academy of Environmental Medicine site and you can find that here: http://www.latitudes.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=565):

 

This roster lists referable physician members of record of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. We update this list periodically. Listing in this roster does not constitute a recommendation by AAEM of a particular physician's services

 

Nation: USA

Member: James W. Willoughby , II, D.O.

24 South Main St.

Liberty, MO 64068

Phone: (816) 781-0902

WebSite:

Membership: Member

Specialties: Allergy, Chelation, Environmental Medicine, Immunologic Metabolic Disorders, Nutritional Medicine, Pediatrics,

Certifications:

 

 

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Carolyn

[dolphinspirit]

Thank you all so much for the support and information. Carolyn, I will definitely look into seeing the doctor you recommended. I want to avoid medication, that's why I've waited this long to go see someone. My parents never took me to a doctor for any of the tics when I was younger. I'm afraid they had the philosophy of a lot of people who don't understand it... "why don't you just stop doing that." I ordered the book: Tics and Tourette's: Breakthrough Discoveries in Natural Treatments. After reading the information on this forum and learning about the alternative doctors, I actually have a lot of hope. Anyway, I go to the psychiatrist tomorrow and I feel I'm better prepared now. Thank you all very much.

 

Sandy

[Elise]

Hi

Iam also new to this board!! am 30 years old and ever since i was a kid i would flap my arms really fast and it was like i cant control it and i had to do it because it gave me a sence of relief. I got picked on pretty bad so now i try to do it so nobody will notice. My new thing is twisting my wrist and i think i have carpol tunnel and i cant seam to stop this it is so hard. I was never diagnosed with anything my mother never took me to the doctors as a kid i guess she thought i would grow out of this. Now i have 3 children and they all have the same type of behaviors that i had has a child. My older son has a speach problem with a lisp and he constantly flaps his arms like i do. He paces back and forth for long periods of time and if you say something to him he will repeat you or sometimes he will even repeat himself. My daughter clenches her fists and her face tighens and she makes noices and she too also flaps her arms and twists her ancles. My youngest boy is doing the hand flapping also. He also will twist his fingers and makes grunting noises. I have told this to my doctor and he said it sounds like a tic but he never said that it was he just said it sounds like it. I wonder if this is genetic because we all have this and i would like to find an answer to why we do this. Does anyone out there think that this is a tic or is this something else? Please let me know what you think. I have been trying to look up info but I just really dont know

Please help!!! Thanks Elise

[Chemar]

Hi Elise and welcome

from what you describe it certainly sounds like tics and also possibly even Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

 

Here is a good website to learn more

http://www.tourettesyndrome.net

 

Tourette Syndrome is characterised by movements and noises that come and go and can change, (along with things like repeating other people's and one's own words and copying their movements etc)

In general, Tourettes is inherited genetically, although there is much evidence to suggest that even when inherited, it may take environmental and other triggers to cause it to manifest.

 

There is a wealth of information on this site about it.

 

Do ask as many questions as you need to...there is usually always someone here who will try to help

 

stay in touch....

[dolphinspirit]

My appointment went a lot better than expected. The doctor I went to is supposedly one of the top motor disorder/tourettes researchers/doctors in the country. He said there's no doubt it's tourettes and that you don't have to have a "verbal", you just have to use your vocal chord area in your tics. I've had tics for 25 years. I ranked high on the tourettes scale (and the program created by tourettes doctors around the world to classify symptoms). He said a medication could make it stop but it only suppresses that part of your brain and you'll start doing it again as soon as you stop. And you could take it forever but they don't know the long-term side effects. I don't need it to totally go away, I just need it to change because this one's hurting my jaw so bad and giving me such bad headaches. So I'm going to try behavior modification therapy and if that doesn't work then I might take the medication just for a couple months to see if it lessens or changes the tic to something that doesn't hurt. He was all excited because all these movement disorder and tourettes organizations have all pitched in to have this multi-million dollar MRI machine built that only scans the brain for areas that generate the tourettes behavior. Washington University in Saint Louis is getting the machine for clinical tests and he needs to scan people's brains who have tourettes and have never taken medication. Apparently that's pretty rare, so my brain and DNA are a goldmine for him. I was very happy that he was open to non-medicinal treatments (even if he is a bit bias because of his research). I really liked him and I’m very glad I went.

 

Sandy

[matt]

Sandy,

 

I'm glad your doctor's visit went well. Please follow up if you get the MRI work done. Do you know what they are looking for and if it can effect treatment? It seems logical that imaging can be used to figure out more of what is happening with Tourette's. If it works out well for you I'd consider enrolling my daughter for the study (9 years old, no family history for Tourette's and never taken medication).

 

Even if you eventually opt for medication I'd think many of the things mentioned in this forum and in Sheila's book would help. Also, with the jaw tic you might want to research botox injections. I've read where this has helped people who are doing self injurious or painful tics. The problem is that it eventually wears off and you have to continue receiving injections. However, the nature of tics is that they change over time so perhaps the injections would work to get you through this period. I don't know that much about the botox so please don't take this suggestion as any anything more than something you might consider researching more thoroughly.

 

Matt

[dolphinspirit]

Matt,

 

I will definitely let you know when I know more about the MRI. He told me the machine and study was coming in a couple of months. I figure even if the technology is too new to help me, maybe it will help others down the line. Your daughter sounds really lucky to have a father like you. I'm sure having a parent who is helpful and understanding makes a huge difference.

 

Sandy

[Chemar]

So glad your visit to the psychiatrist went well Sandy!

Finding a good one is often hard, and so you really are very blessed to have done so.

 

I would also like to encourage you to explore the many other treatment options documented here and in Sheila's excellent book, before resorting to meds. Because of the side effects, meds can sometimes be a real problem.

Here is more info on the book

http://latitudes.org/book.html

 

Do keep in touch and let us know how things are going