tourettes: is it hereditary? can you "out grow" it?

Question

and if it is hereditary, is the gene dominant or recessive?

hahaha! you caught me, i am watching oprah! but i know someone who has it also and was just curious :)

umm...did i ever ask if there was a cure? no, i didn't. what i DID ask is: is it hereditary? dominant or recessive? can you "out grow" it

Answer 1

Youre watching Oprah arnt you???

because its on RIGHT now and theres a guy with tourettes on it

Answer 2

Tourettes Hereditary

Answer 3

my boyfriend has a mild case of tourettes so i've read up on the syndrome pretty good. it is hereditary but little is known about how it is inherited. the article explains (and i've asked my doctor too) that the person has a 50% chance of passing it on.

my boyfriend said that it was REALLY bad for him when he was a teenager (puberty years) and probably because of all those fun hormones zippin around. but the doctor told him that he'd mellow out with age and he was right, although sometimes his tics get so bad in one area, like say his arm, that at the end of the day, the muscles are sore. his tics are very nonchalant but i've seen some people who have it and they're pretty bad. i don't think you can fully outgrow it but like the doctor told him, it could get better with age.

the doctor suggested using medication to control it but he stated that there are so many different meds out there that he'd have to keep trying all the different kinds to see which one works the best but the downside was that it might take a long time to see which one actually does anything, if anything.

i was watching the discovery channel two nights ago about poisons and they said researchers have found that some kind of poison when injected into the throat, helps people with severe vocal tourettes calm their symptoms down. and i've read somewhere (i can't remember the source, i think it was psych class) that nicotine helps tics too.

Answer 4

Good answer, jesusfreaktabbie!

No you cannot outgrow it.

It was thought to be hereditary, but recent studies have concluded that it may be a defective gene. Look up Dr. Matthew W. State's study at Harvard. "Sequence Variants in SLITRK1 Are Associated with Tourette’s Syndrome".

Answer 5

Tourette's disorder is a neurological (brain) condition that usually begins in childhood. It causes a child to make sounds or words (vocal tics) and body movements (motor tics) that are beyond his or her control. Tourette's disorder (TD) is also known as Tourette's syndrome and Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. However, not all tics are TD. Your child may have tics and not develop TD.

Motor tics usually begin between ages 3 and 8. Vocal tics can begin as early as age 3, but they usually develop a few years after motor tics. Tics generally are at their worst at age 12. In most children, tics go away or decrease quite a bit in the teen years. But tics can continue into adulthood.

The effect tics have on children varies. Some children have mild tics that have a small impact on their lives. But even mild or infrequent tics may affect your child's self-esteem and relationships with friends and family. Severe and frequent tics may require treatment, including medicine and counseling. Although a child's tics may seem minor, they may interfere with the child's ability to learn and can cause embarrassment.

It is important to remember that:

Tics are not a sign of low intelligence and do not affect intelligence.
The severity of your child's tics is not a good indicator of how well he or she will perform in school or in social situations.
How well your child can cope with tics can be helped by a supportive home, school, and community environment. try this site for more information:http://www.tourettesyndrome.net/or go to the mayo clinic website or the university of iowa web site hope this helps God bless

Answer 6

Tourettes is a chemical imbalance in the brain, treatable by drugs, but doesn't ever get "cured". Like all inherited diseases, you need to inherit the gene from both parents to "get" Tourettes.

Answer 7

There is no cure for Tourettes at this time.