Neck pain triggering neck tic or vise versa

[pasquale61]

My 9 year old son woke up complaining of serious neck pain. Within a few hours he developed a neck tick followed by eye roll.. He has suffered from various tics for years. Has had neck tics in the past. I'm wondering if the neck pain triggered the recent neck tic or the tics triggered the neck pain. I'm hoping when pain subsides the tics will wane.

[msimon3]

I haven't heard of neck injury causing tics, however neck pain could be a sign of meningitis caused by an infection. Any other symptoms such as neck stiffness, rash, fever, sensory issues may be important to note and could be helpful in identifying possible infection. It might be worthwhile to have your pediatrician check him out.

[Hope4Ben]

Everytime my son gets neck pain he has strep. We put him on Penn VK and the tics go away within a day or two. He has PanDAS. I thought for years he had tourettes that was intermittent then I noticed a pattern it was always when he was sick. Then all heck broke loose and I figured out he had pandas. You should consider strep and see if the symptoms remit with antibiotics. I am not pushing antibiotics but I have heard what you are describing from many families and lived it myself and it was always strep under the radar.

 

Check out the pandas forum just as a precaution.

[Chemar]

Cervical vertebra being out can actually trigger tics...at least for my son with TS that has been the case.

It is one of the reasons that he has consistently seen NUCCA chiros as when he has had gentle NUCCA adjustment it does seem to have calmed the tics. (http://www.nucca.org)

[pasquale61]

Thanks for the quick replies. Took him to doctor yesterday as a precaution. No strep and no signs of anything else. Our GP is not even concerned about the tics. Does not even address the issue, It drives me crazy. Just thinks neck pain related to muscle strain from physical activity or sleeping wrong. I have been witnessing the waxing and waning of tics in him for years. My spouse and GP do not seem concerned. Me on the other hand am very concerned. Took him for complete blood work up today. Could the blood work show elevated titers even though strep test negative?

[msimon3]

Yes it could.

 

There is the Rapid Strep Test, which tells you in about 15 min if you have strep. Then the overnight culture, which is typically (not always) done if the RST is negative. Both of those are throat swabs.

 

And then there are the titers, specifically antideoxyribonuclease-B (Anti-DNase and Anti-streptolysin (ASO) which are blood tests looking for your antibodies to strep bacteria.

 

All four strep tests have well known sensitivity rates, and none are 100% sensitive, meaning that false negatives are possible for any single test. There are many stories here on these boards that tell of initial negative strep tests, only to find out that later strep tests were positive or that symptoms improved after treatment for strep.