Tips on tic triggers?

[einatmike]

Hi!

 

I just discovered this amazing forum! How wonderful it is to find people in the same situation as myself! I have had tics of different sorts since as far as i can remember(i´m 36 years old now). Our 7 year old daughter started with different tics some time ago. Approximatley two years ago she started with "having a problem to breath in". We went to different doctors(pediatricians, ear-nose-throat specialists of diffferent kinds etc), no one could see any pathology in her breathing. In the end we saw she was fine and stopped focusing on it. After a year she started coughing instead of the breathing-thing, again we went to see doctors, without any result.

 

About half a year ago she started sniffing, after that wrinkling(I don´t know if it´s the right word since English isn´t my first language) her nose, and now, the lastet-eye rolling(luckily she´s moving from one habit to another instead of combining them!). Thats about the time I actually realized she had tics.... It made me really upset, since I have had that problem since i was a kid! My parents confonted it with irritable comments like "stop twitching with your eyes!" etc. I have decided to confront the problem with patience, love and more patience, even though it scares the ###### out of me that she will be teased by her friends at school(thats almost the thing that worries me the most, although I wasn´t teased myself since I managed to "hide" my tics quite well).

 

My wife and I are totally against medication, why I decided to search the net for more info(an option my parents never had). Imagine my suprise when I found that there are plenty of people out there with similar problems! Now we started the search for triggers..! I´ve started to try to reduce cane sugar as much as possible, and also remove MSG from the food, which we use quite a lot(crazy to use glutamate in food when the substance actually is a neuro-transmittor!). As far as we can see there is no connection between food and her tics. What we do notice is that when she gets excited(like meeting a lot of friends she hasn´t seen for a long time, or when she has a lot on her mind i.e stress), her tics get more intenese, we don´t really know how to handle that. There seems to be a lot of intelligent and insightful people on this forum why I would be really really grateful for tips and ideas on how to confront this.

 

Mike

[Chemar]

hi Mike and welcome

 

stress and excitement are very frequently noted as tic triggers for those with TS. Both involve release of steroids from the adrenal glands, which in turn are known to stimulate dopamine which then increases tics

 

we all know how hard it is to avoid such stimuli...it's part of life! but calminative remedies can help eg Natural Calm magnesium drink, epsom salts baths, deep breathing techniques, acupuncture, chamomille tea, Bach's rescue remedy are a few of the treatments my son has used to help reduce tics after stress/excitement trigger

[einatmike]

Thanks a lot Cheri! :-)

 

I printed your tips, and also checked the link to your site. I´ll se where I can get a hold of the vitamines and minerals you mention. Currently we´re letting our daughter eat a lot of roasted sunflower seeds, since I read that lack of magnesium is a tic-trigger, and the seed are supposed to contain magnesium, is that correct?(in any case it can´t harm her, and she likes to eat them)

 

Mike