And along comes TS....

So now, here we are with this beautiful child. He's very intelligent, very motivated to do the things he's currently obsessed with and VERY energetic.

His OCD can run out of control some days and drive everyone in our home CRAZY. If a toy isn't put back in the right spot, exactly the way it was situated before, we didn't take the same way around my van to get to my husband's car or if we didn't take the same way to the store - meltdown town! Meltdown town was beginning to be a ritualistic stop on our daily tour too.

If it wasn't the OCD, it was the SPD. He would be screaming because the lights in the store hurt his eyes, the noise from the TV was too loud or not loud enough, the tag in his clothes was really hurting him, etc.

Those days were hard enough but, then the ADHD symptoms seemed to kick into overdrive and he wasn't quite four yet!

Those days were the worst too. Those days usually accompanied OCD or SPD days but, he'd spend the day running, screaming, talking WAY too loud and WAY too much. Again, most moms will say that all kids do this but, they don't quite get that when us ADHD moms say TOO loud and TOO much, we mean they don't stop talking literally ALL day and they're screaming like they're outside ALL day. It can wear on your nerves daily.

Combine that with with the OCD issues and/or the ADHD issues and you make for a very, very stressful life.


Now, nearly a year later since we first heard ADHD, we were suddenly introduced to a new set of initials.

Since our oldest was two, we'd noticed in passing, these odd repetitive things that he'd do here and there but, a)either thought that the were due to allergies, eczema or OCD and b) because they were so random or so it seemed, didn't think anything of them.

The one we noticed first, looking back, was him constantly rubbing his face on our clothing. Again, can't stress the "constant" in constantly. We noticed this at 2 yrs. along with him continually swiping at his nose daily. Then within the next two years he went through many different repetive behaviors and noises.

He'd do this thing with his legs, when he'd stand still, he'd have to touch one foot to the opposite knee. He'd do it the whole time he'd be standing still. He'd pull at his shirt over and over again. Then it was his pants. Almost like they were too tight or too big but, this was not the case for any of his clothes.

He'd have to run and tap one side of the room, then the other. Then he'd start all over again, he'd do it for about ten minutes before continuing onto something else but, sometimes he'd do this not only dialy, he'd have to do it several times a day.

He'd make this eek eek eek noise when alone in a room. I just assumed that he'd got if off of watching TV, a friend from school or a neighbor child. He was soo busy making soo many noises so often, that I didn't pay too much attention to it. Until one day, his early intervention teacher told me that he was making noises in class a lot. When she would get after him to stop, he'd tell her he wasn't doing anything. After a while, she said that the look on his face convinced her that he didn't have a clue he was doing it.

Then the one that really got my attention and drove me mad - sniffing. I wish I could explain the sniffing....it's not like when someone is sniffing from a cold. It was a hard, continual sniffing. It was maddening when you were alone in a room or car with him. I always had to turn on the music or TV a bit louder than I would've liked because I was afraid I was going to hurt him!

After that he moved on to this blinking thing. That's when I started to pay attention. He was doing it no matter what - stressed, it was worse of course; relaxed and alone, he would still do it! Nothing seemed to set it off and nothing seemed to relieve it.

We go to the doctor's office and go through just the last few repetitive things because I didn't know what exactly he was asking me to think back about until he said Tourette Syndrome.

Of course, I thought to an classmate of mine Jeff. He had TS, one of the severe forms. He would cuss, blink or roll his eyes and slam a leg or something down during a tic. That is what I thought that TS was. I was wrong.

This, my son was what a majority of people with TS are like. Most people never need meds and some even make it through their entire lives and don't even know they have it, if it's milk enough!

The reason being that tics can be anything. They are both complex and simple vocal and motor tics, there are sensory tics and even obsessive compulsive tics. Sometimes they're things that you never think of!

Unfortunately, my son was one of those that needed medication. So, we've started at the beginning, a basic dose of clonidine. We've sinced upped the dosage because it didn't seem to be working but, the side effects are a bit more than I can handle some days.