Can a teen develop Tourettes

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 9:30 pm

I will preface this with yes- I should contact a doctor...13 y.o. DS came home from school today and he kept bending both arms like he was about to type(but he was standing up) and then pulling his elbows back ppast his waist. I asked him -what is he doing? He said there is a creepy feeling under his skin at the crook of his arm and this seems to help. Uh-oh. What does that mean. Last year during allergy season he started this weird throat clearing which turned into a hum, but that went away. Also the past 3 days he has complained of back pain(he has had back pain on and off, the doctor says he need to exercise and his book bag is probably too heavy( Ha -exercise- when does a yeshiva students who doesn't play basketball do that?)
This bending the arm thing is freaking me out a bit..

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 9:44 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

Is he sleep deprived? Try he should get more sleep and see if it helps. Also I learned everyone react differently to step. Take a culture

Probably needs more sleep- yep.. will ask about his throat too- thanks!

amother

Fuchsia

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 9:57 pm

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

sudden onset of tics in otherwise healthy child will almost always be pandas. Please have him swabbed and cultured asap, and evaluated for pandas by a pandas literate pediatrician.

I disagree I feel there is somone on another who is trrying hard to educate the rest of us that any behavior that seems to start up suddenly must be pandas. I'm not saying it cant be pandas but many times it a easy blame that doesnt get to the real route. I happen to know of a somone who'd son seemed to have developed ticks and it was from a lack of sleep. I also know a kid who started stuttering and again they realize it had to do with his sleeping habits. I also know of somone who originally blamed there child strange behavior as pandas. The mother even had proof and it turned out to be ocd

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 9:59 pm

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

sudden onset of tics in otherwise healthy child will almost always be pandas. Please have him swabbed and cultured asap, and evaluated for pandas by a pandas literate pediatrician.

Years ago I had asked my pediatrician about PANDAs. he said their was no definitive /clear cut literature (this disturbed me cuz you just google it and its easy to find) ds throat culture at the time was negative.

Thanks for the advice will get the culture done asap.

amother

Seafoam

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:03 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

your pediatrician is obviously not up to date on the latest research/not a believer. You either need to switch pediatricians, go to a pandas specialist and/or until then go to an urgent care, say you had a sore throat and fever and ask for a culture. Chances are it'll be positive and you'll get a week of antibiotics. If the tics disappear you can take that information to your pedi/specialist and take it from there. Btw if the tics seem to be related to allergies you can try an anti histamine and see if it goes away. Histamine is actually a neurohormone and too much of it can be a cause of tics.

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:04 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I will take all advice- just to hold me over from extra worry til I get in touch with the doctor.
I felt so sad for ds- he was in tears saying- "what is going on with my body?"

amother

Seafoam

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:07 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I will take all advice- just to hold me over from extra worry til I get in touch with the doctor.
I felt so sad for ds- he was in tears saying- "what is going on with my body?"

so sad and painful to watch them not have control over their movements. Until you get to a doctor, motrin or naproxen around the clock could help, if it's in fact caused by inflammation. Also, cough medicine like robitussin that has dextromethorpan as the active ingredient strangely enough stops tics because it happens to be a glutamate blocker in the brain. Also the supplement NAC works pretty quickly to stop tics in lots of people. You will need a pretty high dose several times a day.

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:10 pm

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

Thanks!

amother

Seafoam

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:13 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

Fatigue always exacerbates neurological weaknesses because it causes the brain to flood with cortisol, but it's not a cause in an of itself, because many many people don't get enough sleep, yet they don't develop tics or stutters. And how did that mother figure out that it was "just" ocd and not pandas? Ocd is a group of symptoms, it's not a cause. Pandas may or may not have been the cause of that child's ocd, but it still had *some* cause. Just because therapy or medication helped doesn't mean that it wasn't being caused by an autoimmune reaction against the brain triggered by strep.

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:16 pm

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

Yep- my plan is to go to an urgent care..

amother

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:27 pm

I am just remembering I took ds to an ENT during chol hamoed because of his allergies and clearing throat- a new ENT (who was a pompous ----) after spraying a numbing medication in ds's nose so he could look down his throat and decided not to) said ds had really large tonsils..

amother

Seafoam

Tue, Oct 29 2019, 10:28 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

That could indicate chronic strep

amother

Peach

Wed, Oct 30 2019, 12:15 am

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

Please don’t start doping up with ds with all those meds right now. Get him the strep test and then take it from there.

anonymrs

Wed, Oct 30 2019, 12:20 am

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

Yes, this. Also, kids with PANDAS often do have sleep issues related to vitamin B deficiencies which are needed to produce melatonin.

OCD is a classic symptom of PANDAS so I'm not sure how anyone would make that determination that it was 'just OCD' and not PANDAS. Confused