Tourettes disorder question??-sorry if its wrong board

[pucca_chick]

Hey i wasnt sure what board to post this on sorry. does ne1 here have tourettes or know alot about it. i just wanted to ask a few questions. ive always had weird 'habits' as my parents call them. its sort of a standing joke in our family, the phases and strange things ive always done.

i have strange movements that i do wiithout warning or control. i mean if i realise im doing it i can stop, but i feel like i cant really cos i dnt want to at times. if i try and stop i do it like compensation, i have to do it over and over or a longer period of time.

wen i was younger my head and neck wud move from side to side, i didnt always notice i was doing it much until i got a sore neck from doing it. other times i just felt like i 'HAD' to do it. i cudnt stop myself. even if i was in public, sitting with a teacher or polite company, sumhow i had to get it out and wud twitch weird. ive also always since i can remember had very exessive blinking, sumtimes repeative fast motions, other times slow and very hard were they stay closed for a second-this looks strange and pple have asked what is wrong with my eyes. also, all my joints have to be jerked or cracked sumtimes, and for the past year or so my hands randlomly shake like theyre tense but theyre actually not. sumtimes i find myself having to go from right to left, i dont know im doing it alot but if i do catch myself in the motion i can stop, then a few minutes or seconds later im back at it. i was talking with my brother one day wen he suddenly stopped mid sentence and asked what the hell i was doing with my hands. i looked sideways and realised i was holding my whole arm out and it was shaking like a dead hand.

i also have muscle spasms inside me, i tense and contract muscles, like my instep muscles must go from right to left. wen i was young also i had a thing were id make noises thru my throat, i wasnt pretending to be an animal or nething i just wud squeak every minute or so(usually well hidden tho), or my voice wud go in different tones. id also have this thing were id cough (but not actually needing to), over and over, it drove my parents up the wall.

i was just curious as i recently read about tourettes and i seemed to match an awful lot of things. i wudnt think much of it only-r these movements weird, like does every1 else do spasms ans stuff, is it just people tensing there muscles and thats normal. recently tho, ive bin tense my neck muscles, and jerk my head, i shake it sumtimes(god that must look weird!), my jaw has to move out and crack now too, and i found it very hard to sleep the other nite cos everytime i did i kept jerking and it got painful or uncomforatble. sumtimes pple ask what im doing with my eyes, or there are polite pple who say nuthing. its not vastly noticiable but i know its happening. my parents just laff and roll their eyes at me, but they did used to shout at me to stop it that i looked like a freak. to ne1 who knows, shud i c about this or what shud i do. if i understood it i think id be ok and move on. but is other pple like this?

[stevie_23]

Hello again! lol. I was looking at the Tourettes board out of interest after reading your post on the OCD board.

I don't have anything to add here as I don't know enough about it (see my 2 posts on the other board), but another thing I do with the blinking is that I also blink when my eyes are already closed. Is that weird? I don't feel right if I don't. It's annoying sometimes cause when I'm trying to sleep on my side (it's always the same eye that does it) and I'm constantly blinking, it jolts my head into the pillow.

Also, with the slight head shaking/nodding, sometimes I'll have a headache (for unrelated reasons) and it makes the pain worse, but I still "have" to do it. Weirdness.

[pucca_chick]

Lol hi! I dont do the blinking with my eyes closed but if that is keeping u awake cos u cant help it u shud see sum1 about it, its like me and my neck popping it was almost impossible to sleep the other night.

im 18 soon and am going to maybe see the docs, cos what u read in my other post-intrusive thoughts and images, they get to me sumtimes and i want to be able to live without always thinking sum1 is going to come 2 sum horrible death and i see it in my head. im going to ask her about these'tics' as their called and get her opinion on what she thinks all these twitches and random movements r. wud u ever consider going to a doc about this-r u diagnosed with nething else??

[stevie_23]

Nah, I've never been diagnosed with anything else. I've never been to see a psychologist or doctor. I have a psychology degree myself, but still don't know 100% about all this stuff as we only studied some of it briefly.

I think if you're concerned enough to be wanting to see someone, then definitely it's good if you do. Just so you know, and can do whatever is required, if anything, to help the symptoms.

[Ruby_Gloom]

well, i would say you either have a form of tourettes or OCD. If its genuinly involuntary then its more likely to be tourettes i think but if you have a sort of build up of anxiety and get relief from the repetition then its more likely to be OCD (not that im an expert on either). I had the blinking thing and pulled faces (which drove my mum loopy) when i was little and had to do things in odd or even numbers and would get sudden thoughts like 'if this happens a certain way it will make something else happen' even tho the something else wasnt related to what i was doing which is slight OCD and is very common i think.
I wouldnt worry about your movements, its just makes you a quirky and more interesting person is all