facial twitching

[smiley]

my son has begun to twitch his nose and mouth and blinks repeatedly, he also makes this sound by clenching his teeth together and pushing the air through (cannot think how to describe it - hope you follow this!). it gets much worse if he's feeling out of his depth.

 

i've always thought you should try to ignore and not point it out, but he's getting really upset by it. he will hold his hands over his face and gets really fed up with himself.

 

has anyone experience this? if so, any advice??

[Amanda32]

Hi Smileymab

My son blinks alot and so do I as bright lights dont help us, affects us both. He puts his hands over his face to hide his expressions as he always laughs when he should be serious all the time.

Try these links

 

Tics, increase when calm

http://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.ph...t=0entry13304

 

Stimming/rituals, hand licking, teeth grinding

http://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.ph...t=60entry7085

 

Hope this helps

 

Take care

Amanda <'>

Edited August 3, 2005 by Amanda32

[Brook]

Hi Smileymab,

 

When my son was at school, (have taken him out at the mo), he developed a constant sniff and would repeatedly blink, also would look out of the corner of his eyes

 

I asked his TA to observe to see if he was doing it, when I picked him up she said he had been, and its probably the after effects of a cold, I explained he had not had a cold and I thought there was more to it, she just looked at me as if I'd lost the plot

 

Well since taking him out of school the sniffing and blinking have stopped, so I'm pretty convinced it was anxiety related for him.

 

Also my son makes a funny noise through gritted teeth, a bit like the sound of a car engine when you turn it over

 

But he does still do the looking out of the corner of his eye thing

 

Brook

[helenl53]

My son had this quite badly last year and it was most definately stress induced.

 

 

He used to shudder and grunt and blink and shake his head quite violently. I got him checked out by the GP just to eliminate any other cause.

 

He used to become very distressed by it and it did calm down after some months when situations became more tolerable.

 

At the time when he had this, his new school thought that he had Tourettes.

 

We never found a way to stop it and we just had to ride it out, but when he was upset by it, we gave lots of reassurance that he was not going to die from shaken baby syndrome. He had watched a tv programme on this (it was shown at 7.00pm and I was not aware that it was on - I thought he was watching the Simpsons!) and became very frightened and worried that his head shuddering and shaking would lead to his death.

 

As it is an involuntary tic, I am not sure that it can be controlled. If it was a stim, you could try to encourage and alternative

 

 

Best wishes

 

HelenL

[~Jonathan~]

I'm in a similar situation because I was formally diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome in 1999 though I've heard that a lot of my symptoms fall into the OCD/AS category too. On any given day I do these:-

 

Screwing my eyes shut and then opening them wide.

Grinding my teeth until my jaw clicks.

Playing guitar chords on the back of my right hand with my left one.

Saying "pause unpause" over and over again, this stems from when I was a kid because I would say "pause" when someone came into the room thus effectively silencing myself until they were gone, when they were I would say "unpause" and then carry on as before.

Repeating phrases I hear others say over and over until I've said them enough. I feel a pressure inside abate when I've said them the correct amount of times which is different depending on what's being said.

Saying the same things over and over again to Mum and the cats like I'm a record that's stuck in a groove.

Saying things not appropriate to the moment like "that's funny" when I hear that someone's died on the tv or when Mum says "would you like a cup of tea?" I'll say "wow" or "no but I'd like a plate of sh*t" or something equally awful.

 

[jools]

we go through various twitches.....they seem to go on a rota!

so far the most noticable ones for G are excessive blinking, opening his mouth really wide, big cheesy grins, head and neck jerking and vocal tics.

he doesn't seem too bothered about them but kids at school are starting to mention them and it makes it worse.

we ignore them at home .

 

school won't accept they are stress induced but as usual they have subsided now its the school hols!

[Canopus]

Stress. That's what it is. I went through a particularly twitchy phase at secondary school when things were not going right and my parents were panicking over nothing.

[bluejean-genie]

Nat was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome when he was 8 years of age and his tics were both vocal and motor tics. The tics were preceded by an urge to do them and they were also suggestible.

these are some of the tics he experienced

Rapid eye winking/blinking. (continual)

rolling his eyes to such an extent that they hurt.

shoulder shrugging

pulling at the neck of his clothes as they didn't feel right.

rapid nose twitching (like a rabbit)

throat clearing which would start really quiet and grow louder

sniffing (this was so bad he would become extremely distressed as it felt like it was taking his breath away)

dipping his right knee as he walked.

His AS doctor says these were all manifestations of stress he felt when attending school. We have not seen any tics since he has been out of school.

[smiley]

 

thanks everyone for your help and kind words - you lot are keeping me sane at the mo!! it's reasuring to know that he's not the only one who has to deal with this.

 

we went to a local park today with a little paddling pool. he was playing really well - on his own - but as soon as another child appoached him, the twitching began. i stood with him and helped him chat to the other children, this seemed to calm him down and the twitching was less noticable.

 

on the way to the car, another child appoached him and he began to twitch, and did the open and shutting of the mouth thing (he hasn't done that before). he turned and put his face into my tum he got so agrevated he walked away and before i'd gotten to him he'd thumped a tree stump, making his hand bleed. this scared the life out of me he's such a passive child usually.

 

why do our little one's have to go through so much cr*p

 

sorry for whinging - just feel so sorry for him xxxxxxx