Tourette's Awareness Month, May 15th 2025
First up is medical Information
Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome, also known as Tourette Syndrome/Tourette’s Syndrome/TS, is a neurodevelopmental disorder that causes involuntary actions.
Its diagnostic criteria is usually the presence of both motor and vocal tics over a period of time that were onset before age 18, the average onset age being 6. These tics can either be complex or simple, but must be unrelated to anything else, such as other conditions, medications, or substances. While there is no test specifically for Tourette’s, one may be asked to undergo MRIs or other imaging and blood tests to ensure there isn’t another potential cause.
Tourette’s can sometimes be overlooked when one’s tics could be attributed to other things (ex. A sniff-like tic being attributed to allergies). Once thought to be extremely rare, it’s now suggested that about 1% of school age children have Tourette’s. As it is a developmental disorder it can appear unexpectedly, and disappear as well.
Many with the disorder report a drastic decrease or disappearance of their symptoms as they become an adult. It’s also easier in some cases for adults to suppress or redirect their tics to be less notable. In other cases the symptoms can stay the same or even become worse.
Personally, I find the history of Tourette’s interesting, but if you aren’t looking for a history lesson or historical abilism you can skip this section.
Initially called “maladie des tics”, Tourette’s was first documented as a medical condition by Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1885, one year before he was officially recognized as a doctor. His mentor then had the condition named for Gilles de la Tourette.
Tourette’s was possibly documented previously in 1498 when a priest had motor and vocal tics, however at the time they considered him possessed. Then in 1825 Marquise de Dampierre was documented as having involuntary movements and inappropriate verbal outbursts. She ended up being one of the nine cases mentioned in Giles de la Tourette’s research. There was also a notable increase of documentation of what would now be called tic disorders after the Marquise.
After the death of its namesake, Tourette’s was neglected medically, and thought to be simply acting on one's subconscious desires. That was until in the 1960s when a neuroleptic (also known as antipsychotic) drug was shown to reduce symptoms of Tourette’s. Then in the 1970s the National Tourette Syndrome Association was founded, bringing the disorder back into social consciousness. Beginning in 1984 the Association was able to award research grants, encouraging more research to be done, and more organizations to be founded.
Finally, a little about me since later this month we might be getting real personal.
I go by Fen here, and I was diagnosed with Tourette’s around Dec 2017. I figured I like to run my mouth and answer questions, so I might as well do some good while I’m at it. As such, I’ll be the tour guide for this Tourette’s Awareness Month endeavor. If you’d like to know more than I’m covering here, I’m usually around, and if I don’t know an answer, I can try and find it for you. However, I always try to give the warning that my experience won’t be the same as everyone else’s with Tourette’s, so on some topics I can only give my personal thoughts, or on occasion the experiences that have been told to me by others in my life with Tourette’s or tics.
Thanks for reading, I hope you have a great day!
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