ludd
November 8, 2018, 5:56am
21
This gal has a great sense of humour - which is just as well as this condition must be bloody frustrating. Still she has a big following on no bleep youtube:
3 Likes
dvandok
November 10, 2018, 1:34am
22
Still more impulse control than Donald Trump.
Officially no, as “onset during adolescence” is one of the diagnostic criteria for Tourette’s. However, assorted causes can bring on a Tourette’s-like disorder in adulthood.
Note that coprolalia is a feature of only a small minority of Tourette’s cases. It’s primarily a movement disorder.
4 Likes
hecep
November 10, 2018, 3:09am
24
In one of his books, Dr. Oliver Sacks describes a very successful surgeon who has Tourette’s. In surgery, all is perfection; no ticks or odd movements. Elsewhere, though…
Quoting myself from a previous time this came up:
Weirdly enough, my main (real) Tourette’s tic is kind of a reverse Strangelove. My left hand flicks up towards my left ear hard and fast enough to do damage if I don’t get my head out of the way in time.
Single flicks normally, but a rapid triple repeat of it if I’m startled.
It’s a neurological issue, but there’s a definite psychological component; they get worse if I’m stressed, or startled, or self-conscious about being observed. And they move around; at the moment I’ve got the arm-flick, a tendency to jerk my chin to the right, an occasional tongue-cluck and a stutter (that one sucks; I’ve never stuttered before, and I’m a highly verbal sorta person).
Previously, I spent six months where my head would always be twisted down and to the left onto the palm of my hand (kind of a Rodin’s The Thinker pose, but left instead of right and on the palm instead of the back of the hand) unless I was making an active effort not to do it. My hand still tends to drift up to under my chin when I’m distracted.
The really sudden ones like the arm flick are kind of like a patellar reflex (knee-jerk, the classic doctor’s office one); no warning, no sense of volition, but nothing too freaky. It doesn’t feel like you’re a marionette or anything.
Most of the time, though…you know how when you’re going to bed, you try to get yourself into a comfortable position, but there’s always that one last semi-involuntary wriggle before you’re properly comfy?
It’s kinda like that, except that you never, ever get comfy.
2 Likes
pesco
November 12, 2018, 3:39pm
26
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