{"id":2003,"date":"2013-02-20T13:38:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T18:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/njcts.org\/tsparents\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2013-02-20T13:38:29","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T18:38:29","slug":"no-more-medications-my-story-of-ts-from-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/njcts.org\/tsparents\/no-more-medications-my-story-of-ts-from-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"No more medications: My story of TS, from the beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am not only a mom of a young woman who has Tourette Syndrome<\/strong><\/a>, but I also have had TS for 35 years myself. I have to say, “Wow have we come a long way.!”<\/p>\n

I’m going to start from the beginning. I am the oldest in a family of 2. My sister and I were typical girls, who had typical parents and led typical, ordinary lives. I went to a catholic school and was an average kid. I was a brownie, and loved arts and crafts. My grades were good, and life was, too.<\/p>\n

Fourth grade started off normal. I can’t remember exactly when, but I do remember being in class and suddenly having the hiccups — a lot. At first, my teacher sent me out for water, but after a day or so, she had me sitting close to her desk and gave me the eye every time I had an “outburst.”<\/p>\n

I tried really hard to keep quiet, but no matter what, I couldn’t. I was made fun of by the kids I had known all my life, and the school bus rides were torture. When we had to go to church with our class, my teacher would keep me close and hold my hand if I was having a tic. This didn’t help, but she seemed to understand that this wasn’t intentional. My tics, at this point were vocal — very vocal — and I was having full body spasms.<\/p>\n

At some point, my mom was called in to have a meeting with the principle — a stern sister with a kind heart. Unfortunately, she didn’t know much about TS and took it upon herself to explain what she thought could be wrong with me — I might have a tumor or something seriously wrong with my brain and to seek help immediately, and that was it. This is where the ordeal really began, and my poor mom nearly lost her mind!<\/p>\n

My mom took me to MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital), and the tests begun. I had every horrible test that has ever been designed to cause maximum discomfort to an already scared kid. I was kept awake for days to take a brain wave test for 20 minutes, beta wave tests, etc.\u00a0 I had spinal taps without novocaine — twice.<\/p>\n

I am always shocked at how little the entire medical field really knows as a whole but not very surprised that the first line of defense is to throw numerous kinds of medicines at a patient to see what will happen.<\/p>\n

I was only 9, and for the next couple of years, I was to be a human guinea pig. For each medicine given, another had to be given to counteract a side effect. This is a small list of only some of the meds that I can remember:<\/p>\n