Tics - who has them?

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So how many on the spectrum actually have tics (tic disorders including tourette's)?

What tics did or do you have?

I seem to have motor tics right now and I had/have vocal tics. I'm also always at risk to get bad vocal tics again. I have the impression you can 'catch' tics from others like a flu?

I had severe throat clearing as a kid and when I must do it not for normal reasons or hear someone else doing it, the tic comes starts again. It takes time to get rid of it then.

I also had some odd breathing tic in before I talked in my teens and I find it hard to

Apparently jerking your head and your shoulders can be motor tics. Well, I didn't know that until recently.

Can you channel/change your tics?

I can change some, but not all tics into something people hopefully don't notice. Like that instead my head jerks, my leg under the table jerks. Or instead of that I do a weird vocal tic, it can help that I start humming or laughing or talking loudly and exaggerated.

How well can you identify your tics as tics?

I find it hard to identify my tics.

Anyway, all my tics have varying frequency and regularity. From ticing several times in 1 minute to once or twice a day over the past 9-10 years.

Some professional say that often, tics vanish by the time a person goes through adolescence. But I learnt that 90% of those adults who consider themselves tic-free after adolescence still display tics.

Are you referring to involuntary movements?

Yes or no. I mean tics as they're defined medically.

The following should help.

Wikipedia has it good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic

Or in the ICD:


Stimming or sudden movement because of other neurological disorders or seizure disorders are not tics.

so - just related to muscle movement itself? Some explanations include some things that presume you already know what they are. Before you know it you're looking at a word with nothing to do with the first thing at all ...

ugh i hate tics, my most reoccuring tic is shruggin my shoulders, facial tics, headshakes, whole body jerks. Yes i can channel them sometimes, liek my shoulder shrugging can channel into my leg so that twitches and tics uncontrollably. I cant always indentify them, they happen a lot, but soemtimes i dont even realize im ticcing, soemtimes it gets soo bad, im in a huge amount of pain.

I voted no. I used to stutter but I'm not sure if that would qualify as a vocal tic.

Have just a few tics at the moment. The most annoying one is eye rolling, because it's so easily misunderstood. My sister and my uncle have Tourettes syndrom and it looks really painful some times.

This is a thread I can not reply to with a relevant answer. I am confused. If someone would like to explain to me, I would deeply appreciate it

Yes it is! i was ticcing so bad monday night that i had such horrible muscle pain in the morning, i looked possessed on how badly i was ticcing

I'm not sure I understand why you are confused. About what tics look like? I can give it another try to try to provide an explanatory answer. Something real life then, I guess.

These are common examples:

I didn't find any video on adults as fast, but there's a famous documentary on kids with Tourette's and in this video, they show a few tics in the first 2 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLHJBiF3mDM&feature=related

To me there are 2 different feeling to tics. I notice that I need to tic and it feels like the most important urge that's screaming in my head: must tic, must tic, must tic to release the pressure that built up.

Then there is the sudden type that I don't notice until it starts happening. I notice and tic. I can't stop it from happening, but I can redirect it and channel it (to tic in a way other people don't see or hear).

Did that help any?

I prefer visual aids, explaining with pure words was never good, but I'll check the video

Now I not too sure after that video - past 2 minutes and I stopped the video

When I was little, I DID have 2 tics, although I don't know if anyone noticed(Though I tried to hide it, and wasn't around people that much.). One was basically a slight twitch in my right eyelid. Another WAS a tick that affected my shoulder(I believe it was generally my right shoulder), it moved up like a half shrug.

If you want to get VAGUE, I DO stutter sometimes, and my voice DID change(That CAN cause a spasm in the cords and cause the voice to "crack").

BTW Aren't tics things you CAN'T control? Even the boy in that video that spoke of preventing the tic made it clear he fought AGAINST it. So he had the tic(involuntary twitch of the muscle), but he fought against the movement.

And you CAN'T catch tics! You can APPEAR to catch them by a subconcious response(such as yawning or clearing the throat after another did), or getting infected by something that causes a similar action. In either case, it is likely to go away with 15 minutes to a week. A REAL tick will last longer. The 2 I stated at the beginning here lasted YEARS, and I STILL might have them from time to time. They USED to happen as often as like 5 times a day, and now might not happen that often in a year.

Control is a 'spectrum', too I've suffered from facial tics since age 10, mostly eye-rolling and 'heavy' blinking. They're not as uncontrollable as a sneeze or knee-jerk reaction but not totally controllable, either. Kind of in the middle. You know it's needed and have to actually do it yourself, despite knowing that everybody is going to think you an idiot. My hope is that nobody noticed.....

Having Googled tics a few times, it is amazing how LITTLE research has been done considering the impact. Apparently many children have tics at some point, usually in response to stress. And I seem to recall that adults with tics is 1 or 2 in 100. Yet it appears that absolutely NOTHING is known about what causes tics and how to cure them.


A brilliant description! The way I've tried to describe it is to tell people to not blink. After a few minutes, their eyes feel dry and they HAVE to blink. Tics are like that, but it only takes a few seconds for that pressure to build. Tics must surely be related to the 'normal' physical mechanisms that make us move every now and then to stop muscles seiziing up?

No tics, just stims.

Do they feel anything like when one of your muscles randomly starts twitching? I mean, that happens to everyone; but are tics a more complex version of that, or something else?

I used to have a lot of tics before i hit about 13 or so. I would have to stop everything i was doing to do them, no matter what i was doing (like once i was walking in a line and started doing them.... had to stand still, on one leg, and do them..), i've gotten rid of some of these tics, but i still have some (a weird breathing one, a coughing/throat clearing one, and a blinking one), so they're not really noticable but they're there.