When To Worry About Your Kid's Facial And Body Tics

If none of these techniques work, and if tics are problematic for the child, speaking to a physician experienced with using medications to manage tics is the next step. Most children, however, respond well to CBIT, says Pearce.

Doja says the majority of the patients he sees do not take medication for their tics. There are two classes of medication used to treat tics, and they both have side effects, he says.

The first line of treatment is alpha agonists, which are medications to treat blood pressure and also help with tics. The main side effects are sedation and light-headedness. The other is the family of atypical antipsychotics, which are used to treat psychosis or schizophrenia. “These medications have considerably more side effects, including weight gain, problems with your cholesterol lipid counts, problems with a hormone in the brain called prolactin, and sometimes, the emergence of other abnormal movements that can be permanent,” he notes.

Aside from the side effects, Doja adds that because tics come and go and change in appearance over time, it’s often difficult to tell whether the medication is working or not. He adds: “There’s no medicine or behavioural therapy that takes tics away completely. You can reduce the frequency or the severity, but you’re still going to have the tics. The only thing that takes tics away completely is time.”