Got irritated by my son's smelling tic

[patty]

Just want to ask for some feedback as to how to remedy the situation.

 

Since my son took fish oil, he started a smelling tic, he would smell the food before eating it. As he was eating goldfish crackers today, he literally put it almost inside his nostrils smelling it then eating it, and the salt from the cracker is all over his nose.

 

Most days, i tried not to look & say anything because i don't want to draw attention to it. Today, watching him eat like this just got on my nerves. I have to admit, it is very difficult watching tics as they can be pretty strange. Anyways, i asked him if he can smell it farther away before eating it, and he quietly told me this is his new habits. As much as i know he can't helped it, i just can't stand it anymore and had to ask him to stop putting food so close to his nose.

 

I feel so bad, because i told him he should see his NAET dr. and talk to her about his new habit. He was almost in tears becuz he doesn't want anymore treatments.

 

I feel like a bad mom and that maybe i am the one who needs to be treated mentally. Please help!

 

Pat

[lynsey]

Pat,

I know how you feel, but you have to look the other way sometimes. My friend's son with TS had a smelling tic

where he would want to smell her feet. I know it sounds odd and gross, and he was very funny when he did it -

they would be sitting there watching TV and he would want to sniff her feet. She would give his nose a gentle

kick with her foot and he would laugh, she got mad at him too, but eventually this tic "waned" like the others.

Another friend I have whose son also has TS was sniffing his undergarmets (she told me in horror).

So your son sniffing his food is really harmless, do you know how many people without TS sniff their food

before they eat it? I myself did that for years because once I ate something that had gone bad (I can't remember,

I think it was cottage cheese) and so thereafter for years I smelled my food before I ate it, and I don't have TS.

 

If you take him to the doc. every time he has something you consider odd, you are really gonna make him

feel like an "oddball". I learned this through experience. You have to overlook some things. If he smells

something and gets salt or whatever on his nose, just gently point out to him he has something on his nose

and to wipe it. You have to pick and choose very carefully which behaviors you want treated, and which you

can live with, because otherwise your son will feel trapped, like he can't do anything, and yet he has to

because of his disorder. This will make all his symptoms worse and he will be very unhappy.

I'm telling you as someone who has gone through this, I learned from my mistakes!

Lynsey

[Chemar]

(((((((((((Patty)))))))))))

 

I sure understand the feeling. Been there so very many times.

 

yet, hard as it is, we both know that drawing attention to it is only going to make it worse and add all the extra stress too........

 

perhaps he caught a whiff of the fishoil and this has triggered the tic. could it even be obsessive now??

 

is he still on the fish oil? as you know from my other postings we see a definite correlation between increas in tics if my son takes fish oil supplements, not if he eats fish. He only takes flaxseed oil supp for omega 3 now and eats wild alaskan salmon for the extra

 

praying this tic passes soon and that you will have that extra measure of patient endurance so needed when this kind of tic happens

[faith]

Pat, I'll take the smelling tic

I've mentioned before that you were used to seeing a good amount of time with mild ticcing so anything new is going to catch your eye. Just keep remembering, YOU are looking, but others are not. Even if someone sees that a couple times, I don't think it is that strange. Really I'd rather have mine smelling his pencils and books in school instead of grunting.

 

I have to agree with lynsey, sometimes we just have to let our little ones be, but at the same time I think its okay to make a passing nonchalant comment or suggestion about what they are doing (as in holding the thing farther from his nose) just like you would any other suggestion as in "don't leave your socks on the floor", or sometimes I do remind him before he goes into school to just try and keep his noises lowere so he doesn't scare or disturb anyone. I do think it should be okay to gently point out what might be percieved as not so appropriate, I mean they still have to be taught some form of etiquette, if you understand what I mean. I thoroughly understand that the tics cannot be helped, but again, I think its okay to gently help it not be SO obvious or oblivious to the world around them. Don't know if I'm conveying that well. But believe me, I have definitely lost my cool probably more times than you, he even hears me sigh from another room and says "mom, I heard that"!/

 

How is he doing on other tics, is that the only one?

 

Faith

[faith]

lynsey,

just curious, the friends you mentioned with child who has ts - is that just coincidence that you happen to know people who are dealing with this too - or you know them because you met them through your experience with ts? sorry to be nosey, I am always wondering how many out there really have these thngs and we don't know because we don't talk about it to everyone we meet.

 

thanks

Faith

[mommyof2]

Fatih that is a good question... you know alot of my family didn't even notice my sons tics until i started to talk about it, they just took him as he is... now they still do but tell me now they see it... To me my therapy was talking about it, didn't feel like hiding or ignoring it. It did help... My sister just told me this week that she had her nephew, from her husbands side, over and noticed him with a wrist twitch, never saw before... he is in first grade, about when my sons started to be noticable things, she probably wouldn't have noticed this if it wasn't something we know about now.

 

Pat I am with you on tha feelings of a bad mom, somedays i just snap...try not to, but it does happen. I just explain to my son it is me... not him and that i love him very much, he is a very sensative boy and understands how much i love him as he loves me regardless...walks around the house saying it often just out of the blue, even when he doesn't know i am listening. Our smelling tic came and went.... now we have the head bobbing that just won't stop... I say to my husband often i think i need medication to handle it, of course i am just joking...wouldn't do that, but let's him see my frustration, he is not around it nearly as much as i am!!! I just go for my time outs when it is too much.... ((((((( hugs)))))))) coming your way!!!!

[lynsey]

Hi Faith

 

After my sons started displaying symptoms of TS, (in kindergarten), I started noticing other children who had tics. You can't help it,

once you are on the lookout for your own child's tics, you notice every other child that tics too. My husband called me "old eagle-eye".

One of these children was a good friend of my sons'. His mother was frantic to find out what was wrong with him when he started

ticcing. I gently suggested that he might have TS, she was afraid about this possibility but when she did some further investigating

and found out he did in fact haveTS, she was relieved she could then start the road to helping him, knowing what it was.

We forged a very, very close friendship and helped each other with information, doctors names, how to handle the school issues,

and psychological "boosts" (we gabbed with each other every day to relieve our tension. It SO helped).

I then discovered my neighbor's son has TS but his mother was unwilling to seek any help, she just wanted not to think about

it and hoped it would "go away". Both of these children had much worse tics than my sons did.

I learned a lot from each parent's approach. Each kind of approach has it's benefits. At first I thought my neighbor was a

"head in the sand" type of person and she was not doing the most to help her child, then I realized, it was her way of coping.

 

As much as I like to think I was this "uber-mom", who did the most investigating and helping with doctors, with the school....

ultimately I did see that all this focus on them, both with doctors and the school, was making them feel weird and abnormal.

My youngest son actually said to me, "I don't want all these special allowances at school! I don't want to see any more doctors!!

I want to be just like the other kids! They don't give a care if I tic or not!"

 

Out of the mouths of babes.......

 

Lynsey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lynsey,

just curious, the friends you mentioned with child who has ts - is that just coincidence that you happen to know people who are dealing with this too - or you know them because you met them through your experience with ts? sorry to be nosey, I am always wondering how many out there really have these thngs and we don't know because we don't talk about it to everyone we meet.

 

thanks

Faith

[patty]

Thx for all your comments and support.

 

Lately, with my son's returned asthma, i have become irritated, frustrated and stressed out due to the lingering cough. Because of his tics, i held off on the steriod treatment for i don't know what problems may cause. The asthma issue is way more stressful than dealing with his tics because the tics are not life threatening.

 

We have been on naturopathic treatments, but not making much improvement. So i started acupuncture last week and it reduced his cough substantially, so i am hoping that i am on the right track.

 

I am feeling so unsettled, trying desperately to find something that helps with my son's cough. The good news is that he is not wheezing and only use albuterol when needed.

 

If my son does not have tics, the asthma issues would not stress me out as much becuz it not complicated.

 

Thx for listening!

 

Pat

[lynsey]

My son (oldest) also had asthma which both caused a coughing tic, and compounded/prolonged

his coughing.

 

We had him on puffers for the worst episodes of coughing, and also when he had a cold which made

his asthma (and therefore also his coughing, and coughing tic, worse).

 

The puffers did help his cough, and therefore helped his coughing tic.

But also, I found that giving him simple, basic honey lozenges to suck on, helped the coughing subside

and therefore the coughing tic also subsided. He liked to keep pocketfuls of these lozenges

with him at school when his coughing tic was noticeable to the point of embarassing him, and

the teachers kept telling him to go get a drink.

 

Obviously the honey lozenge coated his throat and helped diminish his urge to cough, but I also think the

sucking of the lozenges sort of distracted and interrupted his cough tic as well, if that makes any sense.

 

I don't know, I am just surmising, but at any rate it worked, and it still works for him to

this day

[faith]

thanks for that, lynsey,

yes, I can spot a tic or habit, however subtle, a mile away too, I have seen it a number of times in other kids, even my own family members. Funny tho, it never seems as alarming as I feel when I see my own child doing it. And I am not aware of the person having any disorder such as ts, but I always wonder if there is ever more to it that I just don't know about. I never asked about my own family members (a nephew and my cousin's son) altho they were probably just minor motor tics, I think I would know if they had vocals or ts) because then I would have to disclose and I am not ready to do that for my son does not really understand about all this yet.

 

 

Faith

[patty]

lynsey,

 

You said your son had asthma. How did he get rid of it? Any suggestion is helpful. And did you use steriod like advair to control it? And did the steriod spike tics and did the tics settled after not using it?

 

I do notice some increase in tics with albuterol but not too bad.

 

Sorry for the many questions. Any feedback from you is greatly appreciated.

 

Pat

[lynsey]

lynsey,

 

You said your son had asthma. How did he get rid of it? Any suggestion is helpful. And did you use steriod like advair to control it? And did the steriod spike tics and did the tics settled after not using it?

 

I do notice some increase in tics with albuterol but not too bad.

 

Sorry for the many questions. Any feedback from you is greatly appreciated.

 

Pat

 

 

Hi Patti

 

I'm happy to answer any questions, don't apologize. I love to share what I've learned, and I love to learn what other people share!

 

In short, my son basically grew out of his asthma. He got older, his airway got larger, his asthma diminished. It started diminishing

around the age of 14. He's 17 and a half now. His asthma was a problem since he was very young, but not any more.

Now, having said that, he has a problem with allergies and they are terrible. Over the years we've basically went through every allergy

medication available, now this year he was on allergy injections - once a week for 16 weeks (but it really, really helped).

His allergy symptoms are also a tic trigger. But I digress....

 

The medications he used for asthma were Bricanyl and Pulmicort.

for Bricanyl info, see: http://www.astrazeneca.com/productbrowse/6_90.aspx

and for Pulmicort info, see: http://www.drugs.com/pulmicort.html

 

Dose was 200 ug for both. Because his asthma was so severe (he wound up taken by ambulance to emergency

more than once - couldn't breathe), we saw the top guy for pediatric disorders. He prescribed, at the first

sign of cough, to have him aggressively take his puffers - 2 puffs, 4 times a day. Then after a few days, diminish to 3 times a

day, then 2 times a day, then his cough should be subsiding. And this regimen worked for him. Thereafter, his asthma

episodes were less and were more easily controlled, and he didn't have to take the puffers on a daily basis, other

then when he started coughing. The specialist told us that often the problem is that many GP's give

patients puffers, but then under-dose them. They don't work effectively, or at all, if they

are under-dosed, but many GP's are afraid to raise the dose.

 

I didn't notice any increase in tics whatsoever with these medications. They worked well for my son.

If I can help you with anything else, please feel free to ask! or PM me

Good luck Patti, you sound like a wonderful caring mom, I hope my other email didn't sound like

I was criticizing you being worried, because, I was exactly the same as you and probably much worse...

I was the poster-mom for catastrophizing every little tic and oddity my sons had...finally stopped watching them

other than to realize how beautiful they were

 

 

Lynsey

[lynsey]

Faith,

you mentioned in your email that you were not ready to disclose to family members or others about your son's TS.

I was the same way. Again, one of my friends (the one I was very close to, whose son had severe tics) - she had

the opposite approach. Tell anyone and everyone, in the hopes he would be treated with compassion. In some

cases it worked, but in many cases it backfired, and he was teased endlessly by many students simply because they

knew - not that they noticed his tics necessarily, but anytime other kids got mad at him for any reason, it was

always thrown in his face as an insult. He was very mad at his mom for this. She told me she regretted having been so

willing to disclose it to everyone, but the barn door was open, so to speak. If they had not noticed any tics in him,

or maybe only a little bit, boy - this admission sure opened the door for other kids to scrutinize him and make fun

of him. Now this may not be the case for every child who similarly discloses his condition, but it sure was for my

friend's son. They eventually moved and changed schools and she kept his condition more private, only those that

needed to know, and even though some tics were noticeable, no one commented or made an issue of it.

 

I also felt it was our private family issue, and particularly it was my son's private issue, and if and when he was old

enough and felt comfortable enough to tell people, it would be his choice to tell - NOT MINE.

For example, my brother and parents know about my sons condition because I trust them implicitly, and they are

very compassionate. Did not tell my sister though, for many reasons, and told my parents not to tell her either

 

Lynsey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thanks for that, lynsey,

yes, I can spot a tic or habit, however subtle, a mile away too, I have seen it a number of times in other kids, even my own family members. Funny tho, it never seems as alarming as I feel when I see my own child doing it. And I am not aware of the person having any disorder such as ts, but I always wonder if there is ever more to it that I just don't know about. I never asked about my own family members (a nephew and my cousin's son) altho they were probably just minor motor tics, I think I would know if they had vocals or ts) because then I would have to disclose and I am not ready to do that for my son does not really understand about all this yet.

 

 

Faith

[patty]

Lynsey,

 

Thx so much for the info. re: albuterol & steriod use. It is comforting to know that it didn't spike your son's tics.

 

No need to apologize, no offense taken. I told my son today don't worry about the smelling issue and never mind i said it. He seemed happy about it.

 

Pat

[lynsey]

Another thing I forgot to mention

 

If my sons were doing a tic that I found a bit, shall we say, objectionable, or that

I knew it would be noticed by other people, I used humor a lot to deal with it. I would point out to him what he looked

like when he did it, usually in an exaggerated comical way that would get him laughing like crazy.

Then we would both laugh about it, but thereafter he would make some attempt to modify his tic

somewhat so it wouldn't look so "odd". You use your judgment if you feel the tic is really going overboard,

or if it is something that is not noticeable to most people.

 

So in regards to your sons smelling tic, you could use this approach and say, sweetie, it looks like

your putting the food in your nose! You're getting stuff all over your nose!!! Can you smell things a little less obvious?"

I am a Jim Carrey type of person so I probably would have acted out something funny for him to see,

we would have both laughed like crazy about it, and he would have got the message but not feel bad about it.

 

This way he can still relieve his "tic" but be a little more discreet about it.

I've used this approach with my sons and it worked very well and, like most of them do, the

tic eventually went away..........