Alcohol and TS
On another page on this site I confidently stated that alcohol consumption reduced tics. Common sense would suggest this.
Now I don't drink very often any more, because of my medications, but I had occasion to last night. And this time I watched myself.
It's strange, but the tics actually got worse!
Since my first request for information KS wrote to me and said:
I can immediately sympathize with this; for quite a while I had an alcohol problem. Not very strangely, it was during the worst period of my depression and anxiety. Funny how it's so much easier to meet new people at a party when you're wasted.
I thought, in order to hopefully coax some more information out of people, I'd explain why alcohol should make tics better.
Remember this diagram?
We are looking at the ends of two neurons (brain cells) where they almost touch. But because they don't touch, the messages that pass down the neurons need some way to "jump" the gap between them. They do that by releasing chemicals which cross the gap, and are absorbed by the other one. If you've read the Chemistry page of this site you'd know that dopamine is one of these chemicals, and that TSers have problems with dopamine. To simplify it a lot, we have too much dopamine.
Now, TS drugs work by blocking the passage of dopamine by doing this:
They block the receptors, which is where the dopamine is collected by the receiving neuron.
The reason we expect alcohol to work like a TS drug is that we know that alcohol does this:
It creates a barrier that prevents the neurochemicals in the brain from passing through therefore less is collected by the receptors.
It appears that the signals that are blocked by alcohol the quickest are the impulse control ones (sort of the little version of yourself that sits on your shoulder and says "Do you really want to do that?"). This is why you get more confident/assertive/restless/aggressive/foolhardy when you drink.
Now Dr Comings believed that TS is an impulse control disorder; so logically anything that lessens impulse control would make tics stronger.
After much debate between my little "test group" and myself, I have to admit that alcohol affects everyone differently. Not a huge surprise, but there you go.
It seems that some people find the alcohol relaxes them enough that they don't feel stressed and their tics decrease.
Some feel about the same levels of anxiety as before the drink but their tic level reduces because of the sedating affect of alcohol.
Others find that the alcohol may increase the tics due to impulse control issues, but is more likely to do so because they only drink in stressful situations! A real "cause or effect" question.
So, like any other "Side effect of Tourette's" this is one you'll need to keep an eye on yourself. Just remember that doing anything to much is bad. That's why they call it "too much" after all!
Now I don't drink very often any more, because of my medications, but I had occasion to last night. And this time I watched myself.
It's strange, but the tics actually got worse!
Since my first request for information KS wrote to me and said:
I find that alcohol consumption increases my tics. I've always contributed this to the belief that alcohol reduces ones inhibitions. I rarely drink alcohol anymore but used to quite a bit, mostly, I think out of depression.
I can immediately sympathize with this; for quite a while I had an alcohol problem. Not very strangely, it was during the worst period of my depression and anxiety. Funny how it's so much easier to meet new people at a party when you're wasted.
I thought, in order to hopefully coax some more information out of people, I'd explain why alcohol should make tics better.
Remember this diagram?
We are looking at the ends of two neurons (brain cells) where they almost touch. But because they don't touch, the messages that pass down the neurons need some way to "jump" the gap between them. They do that by releasing chemicals which cross the gap, and are absorbed by the other one. If you've read the Chemistry page of this site you'd know that dopamine is one of these chemicals, and that TSers have problems with dopamine. To simplify it a lot, we have too much dopamine.
Now, TS drugs work by blocking the passage of dopamine by doing this:
They block the receptors, which is where the dopamine is collected by the receiving neuron.
The reason we expect alcohol to work like a TS drug is that we know that alcohol does this:
It creates a barrier that prevents the neurochemicals in the brain from passing through therefore less is collected by the receptors.
It appears that the signals that are blocked by alcohol the quickest are the impulse control ones (sort of the little version of yourself that sits on your shoulder and says "Do you really want to do that?"). This is why you get more confident/assertive/restless/aggressive/foolhardy when you drink.
Now Dr Comings believed that TS is an impulse control disorder; so logically anything that lessens impulse control would make tics stronger.
After much debate between my little "test group" and myself, I have to admit that alcohol affects everyone differently. Not a huge surprise, but there you go.
It seems that some people find the alcohol relaxes them enough that they don't feel stressed and their tics decrease.
Some feel about the same levels of anxiety as before the drink but their tic level reduces because of the sedating affect of alcohol.
Others find that the alcohol may increase the tics due to impulse control issues, but is more likely to do so because they only drink in stressful situations! A real "cause or effect" question.
So, like any other "Side effect of Tourette's" this is one you'll need to keep an eye on yourself. Just remember that doing anything to much is bad. That's why they call it "too much" after all!