At the moment I’m not taking any regular medication for Tourettes. In the past I’ve tried various drugs, but when they stopped working I decided to have a go without them. That was about two years ago. I’m currently reconsidering this decision. A lot of the drug treatments available for Tourettes have undesirable side effects and I’d ideally like to go on trying to manage without them. But at the moment I’m experiencing tics that are pretty full on and have resulted in me injuring myself.

I’m a bit torn about what to do because my tics often change, so although these violent ones are a problem now, they might not be in a few months time. On Friday my GP gave me some medication to help me through the next few weeks until my appointment with my consultant. I didn’t take the medication immediately because I still felt uncertain about it, but I decided to give it a try today. Thankfully, it seems to have slowed my body down without slowing my mind down too much, which has been a problem with the other drugs. However, this particular medication is only a temporary option.