Tourette Syndrome Interview Paper

The person I interviewed is a friend I met through my partner, who was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. He is currently 21-years-old and single, living in Portland, Oregon, works full-time, and is a Japanese American. He was diagnosed in 3rd grade, and often when he was younger his parents assumed his Tourette’s were just him behaving like an overactive child. When he was first diagnosed, he had a lot of verbal stress, but over time it has become more of severe blinking or clearing throat. In the worst case, he often will begin to hyperventilate and have the need to run or perform a physical activity. When he was in middle school he had many more vocal tics but quite different that how the media portrays Tourette syndrome. Popular media often shows Tourette syndrome as screaming profanities or in general acting out in very sporadic extreme ways, which leads the public to believe this is what the syndrome is like for everyone. …show more content…
He has been on many medications as well for Tourette syndrome, for example, he was on Risperdal for a few years in elementary school in small doses. This made him sleepy or drowsy during the day and he could not do anything about it, so he often felt left out because he was simply just too tired to play or spend time with others. The side effect from the Risperdal made him want to switch medications in middle school, and he began to take Sarafem until sophomore year of high school. Then he switched to another dopamine blocker, one he could not recall the name of, but it made him not want to eat so he stopped taking it less than a year later. Since then, he has not taken any other medications and cannot pursue any treatment if he wants because of lack of health

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