Any others with primary diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome?

[tictoc]

Hi,
I notice in various people's signatures menyions of Tourette's Syndrome, but I'm wondering if there are others whose difficult child's have that as their primary diagnosis? Bug was diagnosis about a year ago and also has ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and Sensory Integration Disorder (SID). One psychiatrist has also suggested the possibility of Early Onset Bi-Polar (EOBP), while another has suggested NonVerbal Learning Disorder (NVLD). But, no one is diagnosis'ing those, for now.

I also participate in a Tourette's Syndrome forum, but I feel much more at home here. Bug's behavior seems more similar to the difficult child's on this forum and my gut tells me that there is more going on than Tourette's Syndrome. He has outbursts, but not full-blown rages. For example, today he was mad at DS for being too slow to help with a toy and, when DS told him to wait, Bug said, "You know, some day I'm going to kill you." That type of reaction comes out of nowhere. Then, the outburst is over as suddenly as it came on. Most days involve at least 2 or 3 such outbursts. Those are the good days. In between outbursts, he functions very well and plays happily with his friends and his sister. On bad days, he is irritable the entire day and really can't interact with anyone.

Bug recently got accepted into a program at a teaching hospital and is now seeing a psychiatry resident, but I think we are going to have to switch to someone else. The resident is not working out. At our appointment last week, I wanted to discuss the violent language at school and at home and the hitting and lashing out at his dad and sister. The resident basically said it is not a big deal. He even said to Bug, "Your mom seems a lot more upset by this than you are." Ummm, yeah...that's why we were there. Anyway, I just want someone to help us figure out what else might be going on.

Oh...and now easy child has a tic. Same age at which Bug got his first tic. Thank goodness we haven't seen any of the behavioral issues with her.

 

[smallworld]

As I'm sure you well know, simply defined, Tourette's criteria include a combo of at least two motor tics and at least one vocal tic with symptoms lasting at least one year and with an onset before 18 years old. But Tourette's is highly co-morbid with other conditions including ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), anxiety, depression and learning disabilities. So it's very possible that your difficult child has a lot of other stuff going on in addition to his Tourette's Syndrome.

My own son has motor tics, but not vocal, so he does not have a diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome. He also has co-morbid anxiety, depression, ADHD (inattentive) and mood dysregulation. BiPolar (BP) is a rule-out diagnosis.

 

[GoingNorth]

I've worked with two men who had Tourette's Syndrome. One had the involuntary ticcing. He DID have major problems with controlling his temper and without medication would have outbursts that seemed to come out of the blue.

The other fellow had a couple of strange vocal tics: sniffing and grunting