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9 year old boy with eye blinking


marystro

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Hi Deavyin,

 

This is such a heart warming post. I am very impressed with your experience and how you manage to handle your TS journey. I am the opposite of my husband who is always calm and calculated. I guess this is partly my Type A personality and that when it comes to my son, I get very emotional. Your story is giving me a lot of things to ponder.

 

So far, his eye blinking seemed to have subsided to almost none the last 2 days. A little last night when he was going to bed and I attributed that to fatigue as he had a long day. This morning, I noticed only a very little when he was waking up but may be that was from just opening his eyes and trying to get out of bed. Or may be I am just over sensitive about watching and imagining everything. We will take a wait and see approach and see what the next few days bring. One day at a time is what my husband says. I wish I could be as mentally in control as he is. Working on it...

 

Really appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

 

Mary

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Hello Deavyin,

Welcome to you and thank you for your honest post. I know you have given some of us something to think about. The part of your post that struck me was when you said you felt like you were being punished for your tics when your games were taken away (if that was the case).

 

However, I feel I must clarify and defend some of our intentions. When we, as the parents, discover something that may be contributing to our childs symptoms, we are for the most part trying to remedy the situation in the LEAST stressful way. Meaning we are all looking for suggestions and support so as NOT to make our children feel that they are being punished for their symptoms that they cannot control. I don't think anyone here is saying to their child "OH YEA?! You're blinking while doing video games, so here, give me that so I can throw it in the garbage!!" While it is painful enough just to think that an ordinary game meant to be fun, or a yummy cupcake with green icing could be a problem for some of our kids, I know that no one here WANTS to do anything to punish or upset their child. On the contrary, that is the very thing we are trying NOT to do, and when we discover things may not be good for them, we try in the most loving way to remove it without any undo stress. I don't know if you just read the most recent posts, or have been reading this forum for some time. If you have not yet, I would urge you to please go over as many of the past posts as you can and see how tactful and loving some of them have managed to remove offending items such as tv, computer and yes, video games from the kids, and have managed to actually find it brought the family closer by doing other things, such as spend time playing games together and communicating better and just finding other ways to have fun as a family. That cannot be a bad thing. Certainly, that is a much better stress reducer than any.

 

Please beleive me, I am not undermining your suggestions in any way, I know you are just trying to give an honest opinion from someone who has "been there". The other part of your post that struct me was when you said you have felt the pain and embarrassment and would like to do anything to alleviate that same pain. There--you said it--that is what we are trying to do. With knowledge and understanding, hopefully armed with a little more information than was had 10 or 20 years ago, we can head this off and alleviate some of the pain and embarrasment that this can cause. No one wants that for their child. I know that just yesterday, my son was getting upset when I said not to eat the birthday cake from a party we were ate, so I did compromise and let him have a few bites. He knows we are avoiding wheat and corn but I don't believe he knows it is because of the tics. He is seven and he believes it is because mom does not approve of artificial foods and his blood tests show a sensitivy to that type of food. I go to great pains to provide him with healthy alternatives, like baking my own muffins and bread, and shopping for delicious cookies at the healthfood store that do not have those ingredients. When I explain how improtant this all is for his overall health, it is no diffeerent from any parent limiting candy and junkfood and too much time in fron of the tv, and I believe he knows this is a good thing. Yes, sometimes he does get frustrated, and I will be working on this aspect because I do take something away from your post and will try to be more mindful of this.

 

Now I am not also trying to be condescending or ignorant, but I do think that the twenty first century, while bringing us lots of useful technology, also poses many threats to our and future generations. I for one, have no qualms about limiting anything that could pose a threat to my child's health. After all, I am the parent. He will, in time, understand.

 

Apparently you say you are an avid gamer-I am not in that position--my son does not even own any video games, not even a handheld one, he never took to it, so I am certainly not going to encourage it. I must say also to any mom's here that are fretting over their decisions to limit games, removing these types of things is not the end of the world and I believe will only be for the better, not worse. I know that we are all doing what we believe in our hearts is in the best interest of the child.

 

I could go on but I think I got the message across. Again, thank you for your input, and please continue to join in, you are very much welcomed. I just wanted you to see the other side of the coin too.

 

P.S. I am not sure how old you are--I am guessing mid twenties? Also, I am curious to know if you have ever tried any of the natural treatments that we talk about here.

 

Faith

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Hi Deavyin and welcome to Latitudes/ACN

 

I read your post with great interest as my son is now 17yo and has lived with a TS/OCD etc diagnosis singe age 10, tho in retrospect, we feel his tics and OCD were there at a much younger age...we just didnt recognise them as such

 

Anyway, my son developed very severe TS and OCD and by age 10 he and we were very concerned. However, after a short but intense period trying prescription meds that produced side effects worse than the tics and OCD etc........we were truly blessed to find the natural ways to approach treating him and things have gone very well.

 

Although my son has become a partner in his own healthcare, and from a very early point, realised the importance of diet and supplements to his overall health and TS symptoms in particular and so it has been relatively smooth for him to transition into this regimin.

 

However, when it came to his computer/videogames etc....for him the stress of even experimenting with them off for a bit was not worth it. Intsead he has come to recognise the kinds of games or TV viewing that sets his tics off and so he self limits his time on more explosive games etc and always plays with a daylight lamp on to reduce flicker effect

 

Interestingly, so far he finds the Wii to be the best system to play on as the use of these different styled controllers plus the numchucks have a different impact on him and he does not tic as much with this as with other more traditional systems. He also attributes the standing and frequent motion that accompanies playing the Wii with being more suitable

 

So I guess my son would understand where you are coming from Deavyin...being a rather ardent gamer himself :)

 

But then again, he isnt dealing with photosensitivity in quite the way that some other people do..........and there, the flicker effect can have really unpleasant reactions.

So I can really see the dilemma that parents with photosensitive kids face....and why they would choose restriction (albeit gently enforced) than to see something clearly hurting their child's health

 

We did the same with junk food and additives, and although my son was unwilling at first, (he was only 11 then) yet he soon came to see for himself that if he had "blue raspberry" slurpees he ticced up a storm and had such a flareup of his OCD that it wasnt worth the blue tongue!

 

And, in fact, our whole family has benefitted in overall health improvement and none of us miss the convenience foods and artificial stuff and have come to really appreciate food as it was intended to be...pure and natural and wholesome and nourishing!

 

So, for all of us, we have to make the choices that will best suit our families.

 

It is very important for a child with tics to never feel that they are being punished for ticcing, nomatter how good the motives

Acceptance is an essential part of living with TS! It doesnt mean we dont continue trying to make life better.....it just means we do so with a more relaxed and focussed perspective

 

 

I can sense you have walked a very insightful path in your Tourette journey Deavyin, and I am really pleased to welcome you here. I always appreciate when adults with TS join here as I do feel it gives us a different perspective to consider.

 

we look forward to getting to know you better and having you be part of our forum

 

Cheri

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Deavyin,

 

Welcome... I wanted to tell you I appreciate your post. The Lord knows in the beginning I was so stressed out I made the mistake of punishing my son for his very loud vocal tics. I would send him to his room because I didn't understand they could be that loud. I thought he did them on purpose, and that set me off. I believe it was not understanding TS, shock, and total helplessness. I know this won't be the last time I make a mistake, but hope they are far and few between. I pray everday for the graces needed to make the right choices.

 

 

Faith,

 

I so much connected with your post. My son has a life threatening allergy to peanuts, and I would go to the ends of the earth to make sure he doesn't eat anything that could cause him harm. What he can't have I spend hours making.

 

As a Christian mother I would take away anything I thought was detrimental to my child's soul.

These are my own views, but I do believe a lot of TV shows are pathetic filth, and some videos control our children's minds. You are right the lastest gadget just takes our kids away from the family. I love the fact my girls love a good book. Funny thing... we just played Blurt last night my daughter laughed so hard her stomach hurt, and the other one thought she would pee her pants. I get a kick out of listening to my son laugh his voice is changing/cracking. Thank you for being the voice to help us parents persevere in our good intentions, that gives us hope for the future.

 

God Bless,

C.P.

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Hi All,

 

There is certainly a spectrum of opinions here regarding total removal to limitation to work-around. I appreciate everyone's candid posts. Personally, I favor sports over the "tube". I think it really depends on how each one of us feel about this issue. There is no right or wrong way. Your posts help me look at things from different perspectives and they are great insights.

 

Today is Day 3 without TV/PS3. My boy has not shown any unusual blinking at all. Of course, I still could not observe him at school. He also started water polo tonight and is now sound asleep nicely. This situation really makes me appreciate things more and reminds me how blessed we are as a family. I think sometimes things happen for a reason.

 

Mary

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Dear Mary

 

I am so glad you are seeing improvement!

 

truly, for kids who have photosensitive induced tics,IMO there is no better way to approach this than what you are doing

 

I remember some years ago when Claire first began posting her suspicions about the flicker effect and then her results with her son.

Here on Latitudes, her posts were received with enthusiasm as other parents with photosensitive children discovered the link in their kids too.

However, she received a lot of scorn and ridicule on another forum that we were both members of, and was accused of "punishing" her child's tics by "depriving" him of the TV, games etc

She handled herself with dignity in the face of the unwarranted attacks and continued to share her experience.

So many parents are now thankful for her courage in speaking out as both she and they have seen the positive effects.

 

 

One of the things I always try to stress about treating tics and tourettes is that individuals are unique and no-one really knows better than they themselves or those closest to them as to what the best options are for them

 

As caring parents we frequently have to make tough decisions for our childrens' health and welfare, and that is why having this kind of forum, where people can exchange ideas and experiences is so very valuable....because we can read through everything, do our own research and therefore make knowledgable choices.

 

I have the greatest respect and admiration for all who are here and who have the courage to learn and to try and so make a real change in their lives and those of their kids

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  • 1 month later...

My son has not had blinking eyes for a while ever since we banned video game. Last Thursday, he went to his friend's house and played some video game on his friend's XBOX, first video game since the ban. Immediately we noticed the return of his eye blinking. It was not very severe but we definitely noticed it. The last few days, blinking has subsided somewhat but still happens. I guess I should have told my friend's son's mom that he should not be playing video games...

 

Another thing we noticed is if he's on whole milk, his eye blinking returns. We now only allow him to drink soy milk.

 

I also wonder if sugar is also a trigger. He had a lot of sweet rolls the last 2 days. He typically does not eat much sugar but it was spring break and I thought it would be ok.

 

Now I find myself constantly on the look out for triggers. Seeing his blinking eyes really stresses me out.

 

Mary

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