How I suppress my Tourette tics when they’re too painful to endure

Common triggers:

• allergies
• anger
• anxiety
• caffeine
• excitement
• exhaustion
• fatigue
• reading too much/eye strain
• pain
• physical illness
• stress

Methods that work for me:

• chamomile tea – Sips by has been out of my fave for too long
• HOT bath – sit in tub whilst it fills up so I’m like a frog in a pot waiting to boil
• salt bath – dead sea salt is my fave
• sleep – when all else fails

What doesn’t work for me:

• being told not to focus on it – tics are involuntary and can cause a lot of pain, especially when done in repetition (which is precisely what Tourette syndrome is)
• coffee/caffeine – this actually makes them worse, so I don’t understand why it’s a common recommendation by parents/websites
• eating “well”
• exercise
• learning how to “control” them & then being expected to control them – this is literally the concept of actively working against a natural function
• suppressing it
• yoga