What does help with my Tourette’s and OCD?
- CAMHS therapy and help
- Great Ormond Street hospital gave me ERP therapy via Skype. Exposure, response, prevention therapy (ERP) trains you to better control the urge to tic and it helps you to tolerate the feeling, without doing the tic, until the urge passes. It has helped me to keep safe in certain situations by temporarily suppressing my tics or by ticing first and then doing the action. For example, crossing the road, going up or down stairs, putting a hot drink down, putting a knife or fork down before I hit myself with them or launch my food across the room
- Massage
- Tickling
- Watching videos on my iPad and iPhone (This is the main way I can control my violent full-body tics and eventually get to sleep every night)
- Clonidine has been effective at some stages of my Tourette’s but wasn’t helpful with my severe neck and feet tics, it also made me tired
- A detailed care plan at school – this is really essential and has really helped me to achieve what I am capable of
- Telling all my friends about my conditions – if you can be brave enough this really helps
- Asking for help when I need it, but making sure people don’t help me if I don’t need it. If I knock over something I will pick it up. If I drop some food or my drink I mop it up unless I ask for help
- Chew necklaces
- Drinking from a closed cup with a straw or using a refillable water bottle with a spout