After being diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, the neurologist referred us to what he called a "Behavioral Health Specialist". He said this would be someone who could help teach Thumper some relaxation techniques to maybe lesson his tics and then talk to us about something called "tic reversal training". He said we probably would only have to go a few times and then we'd have the tools we needed to help Thumper.
When we first met with the specialist, she was very nice and she first met with me alone and then met with Thumper alone, and then brought us in together. Again, here I was worried that maybe she wouldn't believe he actually had Tourette's, and maybe she would tell us what awful parents we were, but that wasn't the case. She believed he had Tourette's, but she also saw a lot of signs of ADHD. Thumper is a pretty hyper child, and while he has never had behavioral issues normally stereotyped with ADHD, he was always running around, he could hardly sit still, and he had an awful time staying focused or not getting distracted. While we were there in her office, Thumper was climbing up and down the window sill, rolling around on the floor, standing up, sitting down, and touching everything. I guess I could see why she thought ADHD might be a factor.
Before she addressed the Tourette's, she wanted to rule out ADHD and OCD. I learned that often Tourette Syndrome coincides with ADHD and OCD, so it was important to see if there were other issues affecting Thumper. She gave us some evaluations to fill out and some to give to Thumper's teacher, while she asked a lot of questions and took a lot of notes.
While she was going to wait for all the evaluations to come back before she decided on ADHD, she began trying to see if OCD was a problem for Thumper. I didn't think Thumper had OCD issues. While yes, he did often take a long time to clean his room or put his organize things because he had to line up his books perfectly or arrange something a certain way, I didn't think it was an OCD issue. I mean, he wasn't one of those kids that are a germ-phobe and have to wash their hands all day long. From what I've heard about OCD, it seems like a lot of majorly obsessive traits. Thumper had to have some routine in his day, but not enough that I thought it would be obsessive compulsive.
The specialist weighed over his answers and our observations, and somewhat let us know that he did not have OCD although he might have a few OCD traits, although she would get into that later. For now, she wanted to start on a sort of "plan" for lessening his tics.
OK, so here she would tell us some sort of relaxation exercises?
Well, no.
She told us that we needed to start a log to see when Thumper was ticking the most. She said she wanted us to watch him over a 2 week period and record how often he was ticking in the morning, in the afternoon, and the evening. She wanted us to have a separate chart for the vocal tics and facial tics. We were to keep track and report back in a couple of weeks. Then when she could see a pattern or whatever, she would begin the "plan".
So, OK, fair enough. We went home and for the next little while we began keeping track of when Thumper's tics were bad or not. Of course, this wasn't as easy said than done. I mean, unless I was sitting there staring at Thumper all day long, I really didn't get a good report. Sure when his tics were bad I could hear him, but for his facial tics I had to be staring at him all the time, and we live pretty busy lives, so it wasn't working out to well. We have 4 children, and we both work. We have dance classes, scouts, music lessons, and activities. We felt bad, but we didn't know how accurate this record was going to be when we didn't have the time to be watching Thumper 24 hours a day. So, sorry to say, but I kind of guessed a lot on the log, although I tried, but we did it, and after filling out the other paperwork for ADHD and other things, we were ready to meet back with the specialist.
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