★★★★☆
I am so thankful to everyone for sharing their stories, and possible remedies for tics. I just thought I'd write a note as to what has helped my 7 year old, who started with neck rolls a few months back, and then severe eye-blinking tics. I took him to the doctor, because I thought he may have had something wrong with his neck. The x-ray showed all was well. Then, immediately the next day, his eye-blinking started. That's when I realized they were both tics. I read about the different natural treatments, and went to Whole Foods to buy anything that might help him, as it broke my heart to watch his distress. I tried two types of magnesium, Natural Calm Kids, and the regular Natural Calm (Natural Vitatily is the brand, I think).
I gave him half the recommended dosage in the morning and half at night. I don't give any calcium supplementation. I gave him a chewable suntheanine tablet with each dose. (I think it's just a brand of l-theanine?) The Natural Calm Kids decreased his tics, but the regular Natural Calm product has worked amazingly well. I only see two or three eye squeezes a day now. The regular Natural Calm has magnesium citrate vs. the kid version, which has magnesium glycinate.
I have read that glycinate is actually more easily absorbed, but it doesn't work as well for my particular child. I should say, we also rub magnesium oil on his feet at night. I don't know the brand, but it was the only one they carried. It was $10 for a relatively large spray bottle. But we used the oil with both magnesium trials, so I'm not sure that it makes a huge difference. I wanted to let everyone know what has worked for us so far, just in case it could help someone else as well. Good luck to everyone.
