[tiel]

Hello,
A brief history.
I am currenlty dating this wonderful man who has TS. He has coporalia tics, and can at times be very uncomfortable to hear. We have been dating for sometime now and we have been talking about marriage. I have a 5 year old little girl from a previous relationship and I am not sure how best to introduce his disorder/the vocal tics (curse words).
Any ideas?

[Celly]

I must say you are in a somewhat tough position. I myself have TS and I am a mother of two boys. One 3 1/2 and one 6 months. I use to have the all the tics in the book pretty much. At 15 years old i started having the "coporalia tics" as well as many others. The Dr.s put me on a medication and it made me do all my tics worse than before. And then i got on a medication called Orap. Not many people with TS have heard about this from what I know. I was one of the first people my Dr. prescribed it too. Anyways, it really helped. I still had tics, but they were manageable. Especially the vocals. that was always a tough one. Of course i did have side effects with the orap. I had gained weight but i think that was because the meds made me feel somewhat down. But i never went to the Dr. to try to work through that. I am no longer on medication because i chose not to be. But at the time that I was taking the Orap it helped so much. I just feel like I can do it on my own now. I am 23 and still have different types of tics. (no longer the coporalia tics) If he is currently taking meds maybe he could mention to his Dr. about Orap or even if he is not taking meds. This is the only thing i can think of to help make things a little more comfortable just to ease into things with your child.

However, if they aren't too bad and all the time, it really depends on the way she will handle it as well as you. Explaining this to a child isn't hard. Children are very understanding and i know it has a lot to do with the curse words, but it depends on how you feel about them. If this is someone you see yourself with then it will end up happening sooner or later. I think this would be an easier age to introduce things because she is still so young.

Sorry i feel like i am just rambling. Again, this is a tough one, because i understand on both sides. It's amazing what children can understand and deal with but its very important how you as a parent handles it as well as him. I hope that i could be of some help, and again, sorry this was so long. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Celly

[mcmama]

Take all the length you want. You are explaining something pretty difficult to explain very well.

I know someone who probably has this and denies it. She does not have bad vocal tics, but she squints and snorts a lot. I think she covers the vocal tics by saying stuff like "Jeez!" and "Wow!" and "Ugh". But she exclaims quite a bit, sometimes at weird times. Not when she's in church or in a movie theater, but when she's talking or listening. Doesn't curse.

Does this sound like tourettes to you, or something different?