Help - realising I have tics

[Blackwater]

Hi everyone,

New to the forum and hoping I can get some advice. I am 30 years old and lately I have been dealing with a lot of issues associated with what I think is OCD (issues with intrusive thoughts, checking etc) and have finally started therapy which is helping. I have a lot of issues with this but the main one is a mental ritual I am trying to break the habit of and all of a sudden my head starts to jerk last week whilst performing the ritual which has become almost automatic. This has never happened before but over the last few days I have started to click my tongue, grunt, facial grimaces, sniff, touch my nose and other parts of my face etc. 

This has become quite distressing and is no longer part of the compulsion. The thing is apart from the head jerk I realised I do the other things a lot and just thought I had bad sinuses or just had weird habits as these have never been constant like they are now. I am  on sertraline could this be a cause? 

Does anyone have any useful coping mechanisms I have found listening music helps to a degree and video games which I never play anymore helps a lot. Any advice would be appreciated! 

Thanks,

John

[Sheila]

Hi blackwater and welcome to the forums. I will let others answer about approaches they have found helpful for the symptoms you describe. I just wanted to give you a link for all the effects that sertraline (Zoloft) can cause. Many people have negative reactions to it.  Please see here.

Also you may wish to look into an allergy connection to your movements since you mentioned sinuses. This book addresses that along with other issues. Read about the book here (it is on Amazon). 

I hope you find the help you need! Sheila