Symptoms

The symptoms of Tourette Syndrome (TS) are tics, repeated movements and sounds. It is important to understand that these are chronic (long-term) and involuntary. Someone with TS may be able to suppress them for a period but eventually they have to let the tics out.

Tics usually start in childhood around the age of 7 and are likely to persist throughout life, though the symptoms often decrease towards the end of adolescence. The first symptoms are usually facial tics such as rapid blinking or twitches of the mouth, but TS may start with sounds such as throat clearing and sniffing, or even with multiple tics of movements and sounds.

Even within the same person, the tics vary in many ways:

• they wax and wane; they get better and worse over time
• they change; one tic stops and another starts
• they may be made worse by stress and anxiety
• they may be alleviated with relaxation or concentration on an absorbing task

These changes are completely unpredictable. The person with TS has no control over them. It is often very difficult, even for family, friends, teachers and employers of a person with TS, to believe that their actions or vocal utterances are involuntary. But they are.