Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Rolling eyes nervous tic question

I have a question about nervous tics. DS6 just started what we believe to be a nervous tic. He rolls he eyes from side to side. This just started about 4 days ago, but it seems to have gotten worse. I have watched him closely; the more uncomfortable he is the more he rolls his eyes. It�s very unnerving to watch, he even moves his head a little. Last year he used to flip his head to keep any of his hair of his face, so we cut his hair, yet he would still do the head flip, this lasted about two months. The eye rolling however is much more pronounced and more frequent. His hair was in his face again, so we did cut shorter. We also had him see his pediatrician today, who said not to worry, and to ignore it. Not an easy thing for us parents to do, the worry part. Has anyone else experienced something like this, and what did you do?

Hi Edwin,
A couple of thoughts...
As far as tics, is there a pattern to what sets them off? My friend's son had no less than 11 tics going whenever it was the beginning of a school year or if her child had an upcoming musical performance (a talented pianist).
Not easy to hear but the best thing is to ignore the tics. They will eventually go away.
2nd thought based on my experience with my children. Both were excessively blinking and the younger one was rolling eyes quite a bit: go to the ophthalmologist ASAP - preferably a pediatric ophthalmologist. One child needed glasses and the other - the eye roller - needed a patch for lazy eye. Our regular pediatrician missed the lazy eye diagnosis.

Good luck and pls keep us posted.

Thank you, I think we will make an appoitment with a pediatric opthamologist. We are going to see where things are in about a month.

I have no info for you Edwin but want to wish you luck in sorting it all out. I do know these things can be temporary. I recall my eldest son having a slight tic (I think it was head turning) when he was about 1.5yr old. Do you think your DS is about to make a cognitive leap in some area? My supposition has been that just before a big leap (either physical or mental), the brain undergoes extensive re-wiring which can in the short-term, screw things up lol.

Thank you both, I went home for lunch and its hard to watch. He does it a lot. However it looks like its just a tic he started. I think the change of routine, being home for summer, as opposed to very structured days at school. He is normally a little shy, but I would not say a nervous boy. I think staying at home with DW and DS16, are part of it. In a month if thier is no change, we may look at a nurologist, just to be safe. In speaking with my wife we both had some small tics, hers was blinking, and mine was lip licking. But both where minor, I think just because its his eyes, its very noticable.

GS9, almost 10, does the mouth thing too. He usually denies ever doing it so I'm guessing it's done subconsciously. I always thought it was to help clear sinus and ear passages, but since he doesn't seem to know he's doing it maybe it's a tic, too.

I am sure that if they had had all the fancy diagnoses for things when I was a kid, I would have had them all. There were a number of things that I did as a kid that drove my mother batty. One of them was eyerolling, I remember well. As far as I know, it was just a habit, and it eventually went away. I remember a long time when I made this little noise in my throat to "test" my voice, while I was reading or whatever, that my mom continually tried to make me stop. I would trace patterns in my head, moving my fingers to the pattern. I chewed on my hair. I can't even remember them all, but they went away and weren't anything important, I guess. God only knows what I would be diagnosed with these days!

I recently had a weird thing going on with my eyes where I was squinting at things all the time like trying to focus hard, for no reason, and blinking hard all the time. And it made my head hurt. I figured out that it was just plain stress. I'm not the sort to get stressed out, but I was freaking about my job going away and having nothing to back it up, and I guess it just turned into a physical reaction. It's mostly gone now that I have a new job.

So I'd say don't worry too much about the eyerolling--it will probably wander off and be replaced by something equally annoying.

I did the same thing when I was around 10 or 11 and now DS5 started doing it as well. I try to be understanding since I did it too but it still gets on my nerves.

Well some good news. The eye rolling has reduced in frequency, he was doing it two to three times a minute. It was kind of intense, he didn't do it all the time, but he was doing it most of the time. We let him stay the night at SIL's home with her 2 boys, and stay the next day and play all day. By the end of the day he was doing it about 10 times in thw whole evening. Wow do we feel better, we already had a top pedatric nerologist appointment set up. My DW and I have read more about tics, TS, Pandas, and anything else we could find. Now we know where he gets his OCD behavior from. LOL. So far things are much better, we cancelled appointments and have taken a wait and see. We are also de stressing the home. We belive he devoped the tic because of a comination of things, his hair being in his face (We cut it) an ocd type of action, the change to summer, which is far less structure. And just the stress of two boys and DW being at home for extended period of times. It's nice to see him doing much better.

Edwin,

I hope it all works out... I know, I too would be calling neurologists with what you described. I am really relieved that the tic seems to be diminishing and I am sure you and your wife will be keeping a close eye on the situation. And at the very least ... this situation has made you read up on the related topics which means you are clearly educated on what to look for and when it would become a true concern.

Do keep us posted and I for one will cross my fingers and toes that it was simply a temporary thing.