Intensive tics again!

[einatmike]

Hi friends!

 

Our daughter has been tic free for almost a week. We´ve been very restrictive with sugar(cookies, cakes, sweets etc), a positive side-effect is that we´re focusing on healthier food now! Today we took her to the amusment park. She went on the roller coaster, and after that she has been eye bliniking like never before the whole evening...

 

Cheri explained that an excess release of dopamine (which is a well known tic trigger) activates during excitement. What shall we do? Not take her to the amusment park as long as we suspect the tics to reoccure? Is there any way to avoid exciting activities to activate the tics?

 

Mike

[ilovedogs]

Hi, I personally don't think there's anyway to avoid these triggers. What you can do is an epsom salts bath at home to help calm the nervous system or give some magnesium as a supplement. Chances are she'll calm down after a few days. My ds always tics more when he's excited, nervous, or anxious, etc. It's just the nature of their nervous system. You can't keep them in a bubble, but you can try to minimize the effects of stress, both good and bad with some home treatment/remedies. Remember, all the tics wax and wane and this episode will pass!

 

Bonnie

[faith]

Mike,

I find it interesting that you said your daughter's tics increased after the roller coaster? but was it the roller coaster, or just the amusement park in general? did you notice an increase in tics while walking around the park? I ask because, altho my son has two significant tics (vocal sound and head shake) in these past couple months, I did feel like he was off the wall with it at an amusement park a few weeks ago. So I was thinking that all the flashing lights of the rides was doing that. I mean, he was shaking his head constantly with no break inbetween. I did notice when we got in the car, it was dark by that time, and he sat in the front seat, I was able to observe him and wasn't doing it as frequently. of course it was still there, but at least some break inbetween, so I do think it calmed a little. To the casual observer, one might not notice any reduction, but we as parents are always gauging the intensity and frequency, so I really did think it was exacerbated at the park. Also the prior evening, we had been at the mall and in a department store. he was doing the neck tic alot and even commented to me that he couldn't seem to stop doing it and his head was hurting from it. So putting it together, I now think maybe those flourscent lights, which I really had not paid much attention to before.

 

so my point is maybe it was the lighting, and if so, I would think it would calm back down in a day or two or even three. You say she was almost tic free in the last week, was that something new? had you just started implementing a healthier diet? and if so, could you share what exactly you did? is it just blinking that she has right now?

 

Faith

[einatmike]

Hi Bonnie & Faith!

 

Thank you for your quick replies!

 

Bonnie: I´ve been recommended epsom salt baths by Cheri aswell. Excuse my lack of knowledge, but where can i get a hold of that?(We don´t live in the States). I´ve never heard of it before, is epsom the brand of the salt bath, or is it a substance in the salt? We gave our daughter a regular bath yesterday, and it calmed her down a bit, but the blinikin went on for the rest of the evening. Concerning the magnesium, do you have any idea about dosage and if we need to buy pills with magnesium, or just find food-stuff that is rich in magnesium?

 

Faith: Interesting theory about the flashing lights. We were there during daytime, although I have no idea if the lights affected her anyway. My theory is that it was the more intense excitment like riding the roller-coaster(which is quite a trip for a 7 year old girl(soon to be 8 in a few weeks)). What we´ve been trying to be much stricter with during the last weeks is to let her have much less sweet stuff like cookies, candy, ice-cream etc. Also we removed(as far as we know) all MSG from the food we give her. We used to use chicken flavour powder in almost all our cooking, until we realized it contained a lot of MSG....

 

Another very interesting thing is the development from yesterday to today. Until a few weeks ago I was very annoyed and stressed about her tics until I found this forum. Finiding the forum made me calm down a lot, when i realized that there are a lot of people in the same situation, willing to help one another. Yesterday it was my usually calm wife that was more annoyed. I told her that we should wait until tomorrow and see if it will go away after a good night sleep(I thought about the dopamine effect mentioned earlier). And amazingly, today she is tic-free again!! I don´t know if it is a combination of relaxation(we´re on vacation now) and a better diet, or something else. What I´m more and more certain of is that excitement is a major tic trigger in her case.

 

Oh, I also remembered, we tried to let her watch less TV for a while, but that didn´t seem to make any difference. We feel that we can´t deny her everything she enjoyes if there isn´t a clear connection to the tics.

 

Hope my answer helped you, please let me know if you want to know anything else.

 

I will also be grateful for more tips.

 

Mike

[ilovedogs]

Epsom salts are a type of salt that have magnesium in it, it's called magnesium sulfate. I buy mine at the grocery store in the health care aisle, at Walgreens(the local pharmacy), and even Costco sells a big bag of it. You'll usually see it in a bag or a box sold in 1 pound or 3 pound weights. Sorry, but I just realized you're probably on metric so the weights might be different. Here's a link to a picture of the salts so you can see: http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp...p;id=prod849555

Hope this helps. Also, many of us give our kids a product called Natural Calm for the magnesium, the kids version is called Kids Calm and is made by Peter Gillham, here's another link:http://www.iherb.com/Peter-Gillham-s-Natural-Vitality-Kid-s-Formula-Calm-Natural-Orange-8-oz-226-g/5120?at=0

 

Moderators, please remove the links if they aren't allowed. Thanks!

 

 

I'm not sure what country you are in, but I know you can find these products online and you may even be able to find them locally at a health food store, etc. Good luck!

 

Bonnie

[einatmike]

Thanks a lot Bonnie. I really appreciate your help. I googled Epsom salt and found a few local links, I´ll also check your links.

 

Mike

[san70]

Mike,

How long has your daughter had tics? I think that MSG is a trigger for my son. It is amazing how many foods contain it. Be careful, though, companies have a tricky way of listing food ingredients. Disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate are 2 ingredients that are really MSG just a different name. One time, my family went to a restaurant that had lots of big screen tvs all over the restaurant. My poor son was completely overstimulated and was ticcing like crazy. I have never seen his ticcing so bad as it was during that dinner that seemed to last an eternity. I was so upset about it and could not wait to get him out of that restaurant. Well, his ticcing did really calm down soon after we left. Needless to say, we wil never go back there again. It is tough, though, you can't really shelter your daughter. Luckily, there are many other restaurants for us to choose from for dinner!

 

San

[CarolynN]

Here is a link I did about MSG a while back and how it effects my son http://www.latitudes.org/forums/index.php?...d&pid=17225

[einatmike]

Hi again!

 

Carolyn-thanks for the link!

 

San70-when I think about it I think our daughter has had her tics from approx 5 years of age. Different kind of tics-"heavy breathing", coughing, sniffing, eye rolling and blinking, it´s not until the last maybe 6 months we realized it´s actually a tic.

 

MSG has been a regular ingridients in our cooking. Like you say, you can´t shelter your child all her life. Although I have to admit, my wife is home with our girl this last vacation week before school starts, and she thought about taking them to the amusement park again since the kids love it, and I suggested she should concider avoiding it since our girl has been tic-free since we were there last time. I´m just afraid to trigger it again... I feel really torn....

[san70]

I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I wonder if I would expose my ds to some triggers like big tvs would his body get used to it? (Not that I want him watching so much tv!) When my ds plays a lot of Wii (at a friend's house), I notice an increase in his tics but they do subside in the next day or so. I think that the body does adjust and your stimulation and the dopamine decrease because it is not "new" and your body knows what to expect. Did your daughter seem bothered by the tics? Does she really love the amusement park? Think about how she felt there. Was she really happy while your family was at the park?