What is Tourette syndrome? How we diagnose Tourette Tips for Good Health

What is Tourette's syndrome?

Tourettes syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder. A neurodevelopmental disorder "is a group of conditions with onset in the developmental period," so when we're very young and our brain is still developing. "The disorders typically manifest early in development " so very young. Tourette's syndrome has an average age of onset between Five and Seven.

"They are discriminated by developmental lacks that produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning." Now that is all of the neurodevelopmental disorders, but that gives you an idea of what they mean when they call something. And tic disorders as a whole fall under that.

And a tic disorder or a tic (if any of you don't know what that is) It's like a sudden, rapid movement what do they say "a rapid. recurrent, non-rhythmic motor movement, or vocalization." Now some people and I have many of these people in my life will clear their throat, and that's their tic, or they'll sniffle, and that's it, they shrug their shoulders, or they may shake a hand out real quick. Those are all different examples of tics. Now everyone' is different.

Some people have a combination of things they have to do all at once. But all of those things fall under various tics. Now Tourettes itself has, what the DSM says: "has both multiple motor and one or more vocal tics." We have both. We may have a characterized and a vocal tic, like "ahem." And these have to have been present at some time during the illness, although not necessarily concurrently, meaning they don't have to happen simultaneously, but they both have to be present.

The tics may wax or wane in frequency but have persisted for more than a year since the first tic onset. So at least a year, someone has been struggling with this.

Onset is before the age of 18. The disorder is not attributable to subvocalization's physiological results; you can't be under the influence of alcohol, cocaine, any substance, or any medical condition. They reference Huntingdon's disease a lot in this because I guess it can give you a lot of tics.

How we diagnose Tourette?

So now we know what Tourette's syndrome Disorder is and usually when it's diagnosed. As I said, it happens in the early developmental years between the ages of 5 and 7. And those who have tics and Tourettes disorder as a whole usually don't even get treatment. Often the symptoms are not rigid enough to impair their functioning, so they don't need to do anything about it. But other people can find it very impairing, and it can be complicated for them to get jobs, meet people, and feel ok while still having their tics. So those people may seek treatment.

Now, the stuff that I looked into said that first of all, there's no cure for Tourette's disorder, and as I said, some people, it's not even severe enough to seek treatment. It may not even be necessary, but no medication works for all Tourette's disorder symptoms, but some may help. And they reported that stimulants could help, antidepressants can help, and botox can help, which I found very odd, but it makes sense if you have facial tics that could stop you from actually doing it, So those are the three that are most common.

What kind of treatment For Tourette's syndrome:

But the one thing they say works the best is "drum roll."THERAPY! Someone who probably specializes in tic disorders or anxiety disorders because they say they are run together. And a lot of the things I was reading about Tourettes sounded a lot like OCD because they report that one of the things that help in therapy is behavioural therapy.

Where we maybe tell you not to do something for just a minute longer and hold that uncomfortable feeling where you're like; still, I want to do it. Then the urge to do the tic can go away And so that is one of the treatments they talk about, so if you work with a therapist who's excellent with OCD and tic disorders and anxiety disorders, they'll do a lot of behavioural therapy, which is part of the CBT world. And they'll have you try to fight those urges because of the exciting thing about Tourettes.

The more I read about it, even though it can feel like it's an entirely involuntary response like oop, I have no chance even not to do it; within our brain, they say that it is voluntary. If we can tap into that, we can stop the tics. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time with your therapist, but they said that it goes away for most people. So that's great to know if you've been struggling for a long time thinking when there will be relief from this?!

They also talk about just necessary psychotherapy, just talking things out because it can help you cope with the Tourettes and the accompanying symptoms. They talked a lot about how anxiety and depression coincide with Tourettes and how people struggle with those simultaneously. And so as we know, just talking things out and processing through how we feel can help us feel better.

And the last thing that I want to talk about is that behavioural therapy is that if you can find a CBT therapist in your area. I know many of you in the UK and Canada and different parts of the world usually have access to specific therapy and individual therapists. And I know that CBT is ubiquitous... know that CBT therapy is excellent for this. It's all part of that behavioural therapy; it's all part of the same therapy family. So, please, if you're struggling with this and this has been going on since, let's say you were six years old, know that you can overcome.

A lot of it is sitting with that uncomfortable feeling, working with someone as you talk it out, and you fight through those urges, because trust me, all the research, all the reports I read, said that you could overcome it, and it does go away.