Thursday, April 9, 2009

I have a heart...

It's time for I have a Heart! This week [and every other week] I choose to have a heart for Tourette's Syndrome.

It's inherited.
It's a neurological disorder.
and it includes involuntary movements or sounds called tics.

Boys are 4 times more likely to have TS. About 100,000 American have the full-blown version, but around 1 in 200 people have partial TS.

So what's it look like? They might have facial tics, such as jerking or stretching. OR they might constantly cough or sniff. If you've seen Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, you're familiar with that one girl. Well, that's actually pretty realistic. What she had is called coprolalia - that's where they repeat obscenities. Some people just repeat everything you say (and I've seen this one in real life!) - that's called echolalia.

There isn't really a cure. Just different medications. But it's a variety of medications, because no two people are alike.

And, if you have TS, you have a 50% chance of passing it to your child.

Instead of hearing ME talk about it, hear it from real kids. Kids who have TS.

They have TS.
but TS doesn't have them.




3 comments:

  1. It's great that you are raising awareness on these different disorders!!! There are so many people that don't know about them. The video was AWESOME!! The kids on there were really outspoken and intelligent and I think it really gets the point across...and I love that it is from their perspective!!

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  2. Hey, We watched this video in my sped class! Precious precious children.

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  3. So did we!! but we watched the full version. It nearly made me cry... especially how they were saying how they hate their life, they have no friends, and no one wants to be near them :[ terrible. I will never understand what it feels like, but I totally get how they would feel that way... it must be terrible.

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