concerned about my 16 yr old son

[concernedmom07]

My son is 16, and for the past 2 months he has been twitching his eyes, moving his jaw, having abdominal contractions, flaring his nostrils and rolling his shoulders. I am thinking he may have a tic disorder. What can I do to help him? I am taking him to his regular doc to see if they can refer me to someone. Is there any type of medication they can give him to stop this. I dont want anyone at school making fun of him because of it. I have also noticed he does it more when he is playing video games or driving. PLEASE HELP!!!!!

[April2]

My son has facial tics too. I can only say go ahead and see the doctor and get all the tests run that you can to rule out brain tumor (MRI), epilepsy and Turrettes. He could have a mild form of Turretts. With my son, after running all kinds of tests and everything coming back normal, they said it's just simply facial tics and there's not much they can do about it. It's just a nervous habit. The doctor said the medication for Turettes can have a worse side effect than the symptoms so they don't like giving it unless the person has it bad, like the jerking and barking noises.
The doctor told my son to get plenty of sleep and lay off the caffeine, which he doesn't, but he's now 19 so you can only tell them so much!
The first step I'd do is to see your doctor and get an MRI done and see if your doctor will then want to refer him to a specialist. And see where it goes from there. Hope this helps a little.

[babywillowmae]

People who are on meth have alot of those same things going on.   I know that where I live, meth is a really big problem with teenagers.  I don't know your son, so I can't tell, but from what you described, it sounds like it could be a drug problem.  I'm not trying to offend you, please don't take this the wrong way.  Good luck.

[RockRose]

This is VERY unusual that your son,  at 16,  suddenly has so many tics all at once.  I agree with Babywillowmae,  sounds like meth to me too.  This is a very unusual pattern,  for a teenager to have no history of tics and then have so many all of a sudden.  

My son has tics too,  but he's had them since he was about 4,  and it's one tic at a time.  Right now he's squinching his eyes.  He'll go a long time with no tics and then something different will start for a couple weeks,  then subside.

Your son suddenly has 5 tics at once,  with no history.  Keep your eyes and mind open.