Hi Shark,

You are not alone. I’d like to encourage you to practice being kind to yourself, since having tics in front of others can be embarrassing and make us feel ashamed. Love yourself, and your self-confidence will, in time, attract people to you who will love and respect you, too.

If I may ask, what is your diagnosis? Is it Tourette, or another kind of tic disorder?

Hi Shark! I really want to encourage you to let you know you are not alone! I want to encourage you there is hope! At the age of 3 my son started exhibiting signs of Tourette's and by 5 he was diagnosed. It runs in my family. But through a lot of prayer and research I found incredible answers. Mainly that we found out what was triggering him. Tourette's is linked to issues with what is called the neurotransmitters of the body. Neurotransmitters are very complicated but what happens is when they get off the body gets off and starts doing tics. I found out that certain foods were causing his tics to be WAY worse. For example, food with MSG and it has many hidden names that you can research at bit. But it is in foods like Doritos, BBQ potato chips, Kentucky Fried Chicken or any fried chicken you are buying from a store that is premade, canned soups, Soy Sauce, ). I also found out that food dyes that are in foods and drinks like fruit snacks and candy like Red Licorce, colored soda or Gummy Bears were bothering him, foods and drinks with high fructose corn syrup like sodas and candy were also a problem also any foods with artificial sweeteners like diet sodas. I completely changed his diet and gave him vitamins like magnesium taurate, B6, glycine, PS100 and it all made such difference. I learned so much through a book called "Tourette Syndrome: Stop Your Tics by Learning What Triggers Them" by Sheila Rogers DeMare. Perhaps you could ask your parents to buy that book so you can read it. I also was on a forum called "Latitudes.org" and was able to come up with a lot of useful and hopeful information. My son is now 17 and you would literally NEVER know he has tourettes in his DNA. He is doing great. What I have learned is there are ABSOLUTELY triggers to the tics. For each person it could be a different or multiple things trigger the reaction. It could be dairy, gluten (lwheat products), msg, or other foods or it environmental factors but everything I have researched and read and I have done a lot of it there are triggers. MSG though and other "artificial foods" are especially important to avoid because they really ramp up the nervous system and make it more on edge. There are answers and getting on the right supplements and finding your food triggers/environmental triggers is huge. Magnesium is an especially important in fighting tics and I found magnesium taurate to be the best for my son. The type of magnesium you do not want to use, because it is less effective is magnesium oxide. Also I would give my son epsom salts baths with 2 cups of epsom salts and have him sit in the bath for about 30 minutes. Also drinking a lot of water to help flush out the excess neurotransmitters that had built up in his body helps. I have read people's stories who had Tourette's for years and years and once they figured out there was a link to a food/foods or an environmental factor like an allergy to certain plants, candles, carpet even and started on a good series of supplements it made all the difference. A good naturopathic doctor can really help too because they will look at it completely different. Many people, interestingly who have Tourettes, also have asthma or digestive issues. So it tells you there are more things going on in the body that are effecting the way the brain is working. The gut is called the "second brain" of the body because it where 90% of our neurotransmitters are made and if it is not working correctly guess what if does effect the brain. God bless and I hope this helps! Also remember Shark that God loves you and He is for you!