Tourette Syndrome (TS) is not a common ailment, a condition that many people, including doctors, have run across. When I was a child, few doctors or medical personal actually knew what it was. When I was in high school, myself and my parents thought it was Tourette’s but no one would confirm it. I even had a psychologist when I was in the sixth grade and that is one of the reason I believe TS is a chemical in-balance and genetic. The psychologist did nothing for me.

In college I went to the doctors at the University of Rochester to see if they could determine what I had. After all the tests, they concluded it was from a fall that I had as a child. I fell down the stairs leading to the basement in my parents’ house and had a bump on the left side of the head. They said my droopy left eye was confirmation of what happen to me.

My doctors finally confirmed TS at Kaiser Permanente after I reached thirty-two or thirty-three and placed on a series of medications that I am still on. There has been a slight change over the years and several other medicines added to help me control the motor tics, audio tics, and OCD issues. I’m thrilled with what I received from Kaiser and the amount of control I have over my TS.

One thing I find annoying is that people try to associate their issues with TS. Is this concern action, part of TS. Can I blame this social irregularly on to TS. I guess people just don’t know what is TS and what isn’t TS, or what they associate with TS. I am originally from the western part of Pennsylvania and found an organization that handles Tourette Syndrome and issues related to TS. It’s called PATSA and on the web here,

https://patsainc.org/tourette-info/after-the-diagnosis-of-tourette-syndrome/.

They have a wonderful PDF on the subject which is found here,

https://patsainc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PATSA-PrimerBrochure_pr2.pdf.

They have a common symptoms sheet that is very useful in determining if some symptom is a part of TS.

https://patsainc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Symptom-Sheet-final-2020.pdf.

Most of the information is for children, because TS starts when you are before five years old, and might end by the time the child starts college. What most groups don’t talk about is people who have TS still when they are adults. My symptoms never really went away as some groups claim, but became worst during my thirties and I still have them today, thirty years later.