Newly diagnosed young son

[Toms_Mom]

hello everyone- I am so glad I have found this forum! I have a six year old son who started having an outburst of tics during the last week of school. Head shaking followed by hand wringing, grimacing, opening mouth wide and later clicking and making mmm sound. My husband and I were very concerned and afraid because we had never seen anything like this before. No history of TS that we know of and 3 older children who are healthy. We saw our pediatrician who recommended a pediatric neurologist, but we can't get in to see him until late August. We went to see a regular neurologist who diagnosed him as having simple motor tics and said there was nothing we could do, he should outgrow it one day and that we could put him on clonidine if it became a problem in school. I became very depressed and felt so helpless until I found this site and read Sheila Rogers' book.

 

I started using the Feingold program a few weeks ago and have seen a big improvement and the head shaking stopped. I also stopped taking him to the pool because we suspected a problem with the pool chemicals/chlorine - (this all started after we started going to the pool almost daily, and noticed his tics were worse after swimming). I also remembered last year at the same time he had a "breathing habit" that we did not realize was a tic. We asked the neurologist if the chlorine could be causing his tics and he said absolutely not.

 

We saw an allergist and found out he has no allergies except for peaches, but he said my son was very congested and stuffy and has nonallergic rhinitis. He said on his breathing test he did not do as well as he should have and gave us an inhaler for emergency. ( My son has had wheezing in the past with croup and we have used albuterol for that. My pediatrician mentioned that albuterol can cause tics- has anyone heard of this?) He put him on Astelin and Ayr nasal spray. After a couple of days his tics got worse again so I took him off the nasal sprays and started using Simply Saline. Has anyone found that nonallergic rhinitis can contribute to having tics and how do you treat it?

 

Also I have noticed after he has dairy he starts the clicking and vocal mmm noises. Has anyone had this same reaction with dairy and do I need to cut out dairy as well? This is so frustrating because we eat a lot of cheese, milk, and ice cream. Is yogurt tolerated better than other dairy sources? I started using the kids Calm magnesium supplement which seems to help and am worried about his calcium intake. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I really want to treat my son naturally in the most gentle way possible, but the doctors I have seen so far have not been any help at all.

[Chemar]

Hi Tom's Mom and welcome

 

seems to me you are very in tune with some of your son's tic triggers eg the chlorine and possibly the dairy

 

the only thing good your neuro seems to have said was that this could be transient tics which usually resolve as kids grow up. However, re the chlorine he is clearly clueless as many people, not only those with tics, note adverse reactions to chlorine exposure, and I certainly would urge that you be very careful before starting on clonidine

 

I have heard of albuterol triggering tics and I recall others here mentioning that certain nasal sprays do that

 

good to stick with the saline spray and maybe also consider putting an ultrasonic cool mist hydrator in his bedroom...this has made such a difference for my son! They are around $50 at most pharmacies

 

gotta get working but I know others will also have input for you

 

all the best