Valgard, Cisco:
Does it happen in your sleep? I would think you may not be able to get a deep, restful sleep if you’re tensing up or twitching. Or maybe, you’re just so used it them, they don’t prevent you from sleeping.
According to previous girlfriend not only does it not happen in my sleep but she could tell that I was just waking up by noticing tics start to occur.
Also doesn’t happen when I’m having sex. There goes my line about being a “personal vibrator”, darnit.
They make a point of this in “Twitch And Shout”, the narrator is being interviewed on the old Phil Donahue show and says that he doesn’t have tics when he’s asleep or having sex and so his doctor recommended that he do both of those things as often as necessary. Got a big laugh from the studio audience.
If a Tourette’s sufferer grew up never ever hearing any swear words, would he still swear?
Now that’s interesting… Any idea why?
I’d think not - you don’t hear about people with coprolalia screaming out “Blurtzewhipple!” or some other nonsense words…
Nope. Additional field research is needed. Lots and lots of it 
If I had to guess I’d say that it’s because my tics are much less prevalent when I’m relaxed. This jibes with the lack of ticks during sleeping, and also my experiences skydiving - I’m always nervous on the way up and certainly notice my tics, but once out the door I’ve never noticed them. Telemetry of skydivers has shown that heart rate and breathing and other signs of stress spike on the way up and out the door but then very quickly return to levels associated with deep relaxation while in freefall.
Hey Cisco, chime in with your thoughts as well, it’s good to talk about this stuff.
There’s an excellent movie called The Tic Code which is about the friendship between a young boy with TS and an adult jazz musician with TS (played by the late Gregory Hines.) Neither one has the swearing part of the disease.
I find it interesting how the swearing part of the disease is supposedly caused by lack of inhibitions in the brain, as it suggests we ALL want to cuss a blue streak all the time, at least on a subconscious level!
I grind my teeth incredibly bad in my sleep. Bad enough that I’ve woken up people in other rooms before. I don’t know if this is related to the tourrette’s though.
I’ve noticed that I usually don’t start having tics until an hour or more after I wake up. Any kind of excitement; caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, loud/heated conversations, crowds, physical exertion, etc. makes it much worse. Those things usually aren’t present in the first hour of my day so I don’t tic much, if at all.
Tics. I meant tics, not ticks. I’m not covered in blood-sucking parasites, promise.
I only started grinding my teeth when I had a really horrible job. Dentist fitted me with a bite guard, but ever since I quit that job my stress level dropped tremendously and it’s not really a problem now. Talk to your dentist Cisco, the guard will help (I used to clench my jaws so hard I’d wake up feeling like my teeth were about to shatter, literally. Also bit my tongue hard several times).
Yeah, could be that various sensory stimulation starts to add up as we wake up and when we’re “fully awake” the tics start to return with the normal walking-around kinda stress that we all have.
I tend to be pretty mellow and giddy when I’m drunk, I’ll see what happens to the tics next time I’ve had a few. Don’t smoke pot or that would be interesting to check as well.
Just ouf of curiosity, has anybody heard whether marijuana reduces or increases tics?
It’s been years since I’ve smoked it because it gives me panic attacks but I think I remember it increasing them.
I know my tics get worse during stressful situations (for example, in the past I’ve noticed an increase during the weeks leading up to final exams), and I thought I remembered reading/hearing that this was relatively normal. If this were the case, it might help explain a lack of tics during sleep periods (sleep being pretty non-stressful – well, for me at least. 
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As far as the symptoms getting worse with age, when I was diagnossed, I was informed that the opposite is usually true. I certainly know that’s been true for me. (For the record, I’m twenty-three.) My tics used to be noticable to other people (at least, enough to draw attention), but now that’s most certainly not the case. A quick search of the TSA website seems to back this up. (See question number 14.)
Is there a way you can get a clear diagnosis of TS? Like a urine test or something administered by a doctor?
I never really thought about it, but I do move an awful lot. I am forever shaking my legs when sitting, or cracking my knuckles/back/neck/toes/ankles … well … joints. Clicking pens … tapping or wiggling my fingers. Occasionally, I’ll get a chill that will just make my whole body shake and subside immediately. I never really thought about it, because of the marked lack of facial tics. My eyebrow used to twitch when I was nervous (before a big jazz solo, or even younger, before card tournaments). I just thought that was a normal nervous tic though.
I really don’t know whats normal or not for TS, but I think I would really like to know, and if there is any possibility that I do have it, I would like to see a doctor and find out for sure.
Perhaps unrelated, I occasionally, and very randomly have pains in my chest or side, which mak breathing diffiult for about 60 seconds, before they just disappear. I’ve been meaning to go to a doctor to get these checked out for at least 10 years, but never really found them to hamper me for very long, as long as I just hold my breath and attempt to keep a straight face and not grimace.
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IIRC it’s not something that you can test for or measure, it’s diagnosed by the symptoms.