Tourette Syndrome (aka Tourette's Disorder) is a tic disorder medically defined by two or more physical tics plus a vocal tic, all present through a 12 month period. My 7 year-old son Tom has recently been diagnosed with Tourette's.
His particular variation began about a year and a half ago with a sudden movement of his arm, and has changed to a flick of his shoulders and head. For the most part it has been only a small movement and one he could either ignore or incorporate into whatever he was doing at the time. The vocal component only presented itself for the first time in March, and it involves a little high pitched squeal which mostly happens when he's very happy.
He has been able to suppress them at school until he's out in the playground where he can disguise them as part of whatever game he's playing, and the kids, if they have noticed, don't react to them. (It's only a small town - pop. 4,000 - odd, but it seems to have more than it's fair share of physical & intellectual abnormalities and the kids are pretty much used to these things.)
There are three types of medication available but the side-effects seem to be worse than the affliction so we have not used them yet. Anyway the tics have not been sufficiently severe to warrant using them, except for one day earlier this year when they were so severe he said he was afraid his neck was in danger. That was in the school holidays. Yesterday however he said he couldn't control them at school. They were causing him to do big scribbles on his book, and the kids were asking him why he does them. This was very distressing to him as he prefers to keep quiet about them. Last night he came in from playing in the yard and said they had given him a headache. (He never gets headaches, so this too is very distressing for him.)
Today we have kept him home and at 9.00 I'm going to ring the doctor and get a prescription.
I'm posting this because I know that in the Mudcat community there is a wealth of knowledge and experience of Shakepearian proportions and I guess I'm hopiing there will be some advice we haven't thought of yet on how best to deal with this.