Alcohol and tics

[guy123]

I drank a good amount last weekend and at one point noticed that it had been an hour or two since I had ticced (blinked). This was a big deal to me because normally I have a hard blinking tic at least a few times per minute.

 

I googled "alcohol tics" and a few other variants and found some sites that said:

 

- alcohol can reduce tics by interfering with dopamine transmission (under the assumption that people with TS/tics have too much dopamine)

 

But another site said:

 

- "Alcohol also helps to increase the release of dopamine, by a process that is still poorly understood but that appears to involve curtailing the activity of the enzyme that breaks dopamine down."

 

and

 

- Dopamine causes an excitatory response at dopamine receptors in the frontal lobes (7). Alcohol increases the amount of dopamine acting on receptors and enhances the normal feeling of pleasure associated with the dopamine system

 

 

 

Does anyone know what is going on in the brain? Wouldn't increasing dopamine production make tics WORSE?

 

 

 

I'm actually kind of worried. For the last two days my blinking tic has been HORRIBLE. In fact, it was so bad yesterday that today I had DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness, like the soreness you feel the day after a hard workout) in my eyes from blinking so hard yesterday. The tic was so bad today, too, that I started drinking this evening just to relieve it.

 

I'm 27 and have never had an issue with drinking ever (even in college where I liked to party). But I'm a little worried. I'm not drinking to get buzzed/drunk, but to lessen my blinking tic.

 

 

 

Here is a study suggesting a link between dopamine and TS:

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/159/8/1329

CONCLUSIONS: Greater putamen dopamine release was seen in adults with Tourette’s syndrome than in comparison subjects after a pharmacologic challenge with amphetamine. These results suggest that the underlying pathobiology in Tourette’s syndrome is a phasic dysfunction of dopamine transmission.

 

...

 

Application of the amphetamine stimulation technique to adults with Tourette’s syndrome suggests that tics may be associated with higher intrasynaptic levels of dopamine.

[Chemar]

hi

 

as anything beyond mild to very moderate alcohol consumption causes such high toxicity in liver and rest of body, apart from whatever its effect on dopamine.....just the toxic reaction would IMHO trigger tics

 

also, as you do not have a clear TS dx, and therefore your eye blinking could be a result of something totally unrelated to dopamine, I would urge caution

[CSP]

GUY123,

 

My husband remembers alcohol triggering his tics. He did not know there was a name for what he had, but did notice drinking made it worse, where chewing and smoking made the tics better.

 

I do think this is what make it hard for him to tell me how bad his tics were as a kid, because he was dipping at 14yo.

 

CP

[guy123]

GUY123,

 

My husband remembers alcohol triggering his tics. He did not know there was a name for what he had, but did notice drinking made it worse, where chewing and smoking made the tics better.

 

I do think this is what make it hard for him to tell me how bad his tics were as a kid, because he was dipping at 14yo.

 

CP

 

My doctor just said I "have a blinking tic." He believes it's OCD/chemical related. I'm going to ask for a neurologist reference next time I see him (9/2) because I want a PET scan done.