I dont usually wtch MTV, but last night there was a show called True Life on. It came on at 9:00 central time. ANYWAY long story short this episonde was about Tourettes. My daughter watches this station on occasion and told me about it, so i sat down with her and started watching it. It was a story about 3 different people who had tourettes. It was great. One teenage girl who lived with her grandmother ended up have these electrodes put into her brain. At the end of the show it gave an explaination of how things are going for them and it said so far she hadn't noticed any difference in her tourettes but she was still hopeful that these electrodes would help relieve some of her tics.
One 20 year old was deciding whether he should go back on medication. As a child he was put on meds and gained up to 300 lbs by the time he was 16. He went off his meds and lost ALOT of weight. He basically decided medication wan't for him. Even though his tics were interferring with his life he didn't want the side effects of the meds.
The last guy had a mild case of tourettes. He was a stunt cyclist. He had a 5 year old girl, and was engaged to be married. Long story short he was in a competition and had a tic in the middle of a jump and ended up falling off his bike midair, crashing to he ground and breaking his ankle.
Scott enjoyed watching this, he commented that his tourettes wans't as severe as the girls, and was very thankful for that. I dont know if any of you had the chance to watch it, but i thought it was very well done. ESPECIALLY considering it was on MTV!!!!!
Take care and i hope everybody has a good day today.
vicky

Hi Vicky.

I haven't seen the MTV show, but have watched both an HBOFamily program and also a MedicalMysteries program running last month. Both were nicely done. The HBOFamily show is mostly about school-aged children speaking for themselves. It would be great to tape and share with teachers, I think. The other one highlights an adult with severe TS and his decision to undergo the brain surgery. I'll be on the lookout for the MTV show.

I think it's interesting that Scott compared himself...because Luke did too. Unfortunately, Luke felt his tics were more severe than the man undergoing brain surgery. We realize there is more than can be captured on a tv show, but I think Luke's right....his were worse. But, he sure doesn't want to do brain surgery!

We have also found a "vocal tic museum" interesting on http://www.lifesatwitch.com/. A few sound just like some of Luke's and my husband's milder tics! This could be helpful for teachers too.

I guess it's is natural to be curious and compare the tics in others. I'm just glad there are some tasteful shows and websites out there these days spreading the message of TS. Luke said himself the other day that lots more people seem to know about TS now compared to his early diagnosis about 10 years ago. And he said that he couldn't imagine having it a hundred years ago.

Anyway, nice to meet you Vicky.
Cheryl

I didn't see MTV show because I don't get the channel, but I wanted to mention that it sounds like it was a really good show. It showed not only a severe case, but also a mild case.

My sister is in highschool, and I wanted to share with you all how kids in her class reacted to this show. During class a couple students got started talking about the show and started cracking up about some of the tics people had on there. It got to the point where it needed to stop. The teacher told the class that it's really not funny because her cousin has TS. My sister then said, "yeah, it's not funny at all because my sister has TS." The students kept going and the teacher said, "you guys need to stop because I don't find this one bit funny including my cousin has TS." My sister said it about three times and no one heard her.

Their class went on to the next class and two students sitting behind my sister (the same kids that started it in the other class) started making jokes about it again. The one kid said, "ohh I felt so bad when the teacher said her cousin had it" and the other said, "I know" and then they started making jokes again.

My sister then turned around and gave them both a really bad look and said, "you guys, I don't find this one bit funny. I said in the other class three times that my sister has TS and it's not funny, but obviously you were too busy making jokes to hear me." The one kid said, "you really said that." My sister said, "yeah, I said that, maybe you need to do some research before you start cracking jokes about it too, because that would be like me cracking jokes about ......." They didn't say one more word about it the rest of the hour.

Well anyways that's how her class responded to the show which I feel is really disappointing because it only takes a couple kids like that to get a whole class going. Even though her whole school probably knows I have TS now, I'm really glad she stood up to those students. She is the most understanding sister you could ever ask for.

Carolyn