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Quick Facts
Monday, May 4, 2009 - 07:27
- Tourette Syndrome is NOT contagious. You can not catch it from me. You have to either be born with it, sustain a brain injury, or sometimes tics can present themselves as a side effect to medications; however, this may not warrant a Tourette diagnosis.
- Boys are 75% more likely to have Tourette Syndrome than girls. Tourette seems to be less severe in girls.
- 1 child per 1,000 in the United States have Tourette's Disorder. 1 in 100,000 suffers from full blown Complex Tourette Syndrome with both motor and verbal tics like me.
- There is no cure.
- It is named after the French Neurologist Georges Albert Edouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, who discovered it in 1885.
- Only 10% of people with Tourette Syndrome who display vocal tics will have Coprolalia (using profanity).
- Seventy percent of children with Tourette Syndrome will improve by the time they reach adulthood. Most tics will not be observed into adulthood. (But the bullying will stay with them forever).
- We are not mentally retarded. On the contrary, it is mostly the opposite. Most of us with TS and Aspergers have a very high level of intelligence.
- Our condition worsens with anxiety, stress, over stimulation, and too much sensory. This is why we twitch and jerk even more when you stare at us and mock us. You are making us visably nervous and it is not funny. It may take our bodies weeks to calm down.
- Tics come in waves. Motor and Vocal tics wax and wane in severity and frequency. All tics happen though everyday with no break. When we speak with a difference in frequency, a good example would be: rolling your eyes and jerking your neck 80 times a day during a waning period vs. 500 times a day during a waxing period. Hard to believe, but true. Our bodies get really sore.
