toddler tourettes?

[oldlinny]

Our sweet grandson, not yet three years old, has been  exhibiting some symptoms of Tourettes since he was about one... he has a shivering, grimacing action that occurs every few hours all day, and the pediatric neurologist--after elimninating other possibilities like epilepsy, and after various tests including an EEG, bloodwork, a two hour behavioral observation, and complete physical-- has told my son and daughter-in-law that his behavior is indeedsymptomatic of the "tics" of Tourettes. I am hoping that with this site, we can find some helpful suggestions from parents of very young children with this problem... are there nutritional helps? how about natural or homeopathic things? chiropractic? I would greatly appreciate any ideas or support on this, as we are new to the topic...thank you.

[Zepora]

I'm so sorry to hear about your grandson. My own son's symptoms began around the same age. I am not up to date on all the natural or homeopathic things today and I retired from nursing in the late 1980's. But I could be of some advice to you on other things, like what else to expect, especially him being so young! Are you aware of the other types of involuntary things that go along with the "tic"? There is Echolalia, which is repeating the same word or sound or even profanity, over and over, uncontrollably. Copralalia is another vocal "tic", which involves making repetitive animal sounds. The biggest problem that I ran into was other people's opinions, constantly, such as "can't you control your son?", and remarks like this can be very damaging to families of Tourette victims. He might need to be in a school for children with special needs, a normal classroom would be too disrupted by his behavior, but maybe not now. My experience goes back to 1975, so things have changed a lot. Please feel free to write me anytime, about anything at all, or nothing. Just to chat. Once again, I'm so sorry that it's Tourette's, but you're at the right place.
Hugs & Prayers
  sorry about the spelling and any errors, I'm not an expert, just experienced