Understanding Tourette Syndrome; "It Hurts if I Don't Tic"

This picture was taken the fall before Thumper was 8 years old.  He was so carefree then.  Sure, he had been doing these little vocal tics on and off, but it was nothing major and nothing that made us think it was going to be a problem.  

Tourette's is funny that way.  It's like you can have a perfectly normal kid his whole life, and then all of the sudden one day he wakes up and things are different.  All of the sudden he is making these vocal noises consistently and all of the sudden there are other physical tics as well.  

How does that work that one day there are no tics and then the next day there they are and then slowly they continue, change, or get worse?  It just baffles me.  

Anyway, like we explained in the last post, Thumper had begun making this scrunchy face and his swallowing and gulping was happening more often.  The pediatrician just told us to watch and see what happened, and so we did.  

It didn't take long, but just a few weeks after going to the doctor, Thumper began complaining about his nose hurting.  I didn't understand how his nose could hurt.  He pointed to the tip side of his nose and told me that it hurt right there and it wouldn't go away.  I thought it probably had something to do with the way he scrunched his nose up and so I told him this, but he said, "No, Mommy.  It hurts if I DON'T scrunch my nose."  

This was so confusing to me.  It hurt unless he scrunched his nose?  So then he must always be hurting because he is scrunching his nose up more and more?  He's in pain?  All the time?  

And then he began complaining that his throat hurt alot.  He said it was always dry and it hurt all day because he had to keep gulping.  I'm thinking, "then STOP!  Stop gulping!"  But I don't say this.  I don't know what to say.  He says he can't stop swallowing because it hurts if he doesn't, but then it hurts more because he does.  It's like this never ending cycle!

So, our son was in pain like all the time?!  This was a terrible thought to me.  I was upset and began telling my husband how horrible it was and how I didn't know what to do and our little boy was hurting all the time and there was nothing I could do about it.  My husband calmly tells me that he's not hurting because he's only hurting if he doesn't tic, but he's doing the tics, so that is relieving the hurt.  OH!  That seems so crazy to me.  

Is this what it is like?  I've heard that tics are described like an uncontrollable urge to sneeze or an uncontrollable itch.  You just have to do them to get rid of that feeling, but I didn't think of them as the way my son describes as really painful if he doesn't tic.  

I wonder if this is normal or if this is bizarre, and it's stressing me out so I decided to call back the Pediatrician to see what we should do since this "tic disorder" as he called it was now causing my son pain.

The Pediatrician told us to make an appointment to see a neurologist.  

And so that is what we did.