Dear Dr. Garner,
I need your help. My son has these funny body motions and twitches. I believe this is what we used to call a tic. Could you give me advice on how it could be treated? I would really appreciate it.
Also could you talk a little about night cramps? I keep waking up with painful cramps each night, and I don’t know what to do. Please help.
Tic and Night Cramps in Canarsie
Dear Tic/Night Cramps,
First, I would like to recognize Dr. Stanley Sherbell, chief medical officer of New York Methodist Hospital, Park Slope, who was recently honored by the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club. Dr. Sherbell and his wife Marie make perfect role models for the boys and girls. I wish both Dr. Sherbell and Marie many more years of happiness.
Let’s start with your night cramps, which can be extremely painful. Fortunately, they rarely represent a serious medical condition. The cramps, or “charley horse,” can awaken someone out of sleep, much as you described. There are no specific drugs recommended to treat night cramps. A recent study offered some hope when it demonstrated that people who did exercise and stretching before bed had fewer leg cramps per night.
When leg cramps occur, the best thing is to stretch and massage the muscle. A warm bath or heating pad can help. Sometimes an ice pack will do the trick. You have to experiment. The cause of the muscle cramps includes over-exercise and not having enough electrolytes, such as potassium and calcium in the blood. Certain medications can cause cramps as well.
Leg cramps are common and are reported by 50 to 60 percent of adults. They are slightly more common in women and increase as we age.
In the past, quinine was recommended. This is no longer advised as there have been several warnings about this medication. It is something you should discuss with your physician as some people still use it anyway.
Visit your doctor so that you can arrive at the proper treatment and get relief from those night cramps.
As for your son, nervous tics are actually quite common in children. A tic is a sudden repeating sound or movement that is hard to control. Most tics are only temporary, and very few last more than three months. Twenty-five percent of children have had a tic before age 18. It is usually worsened by stressful situations.
The cause of tics is not well known. It is not Tourette’s syndrome, which is much more severe and describes multiple tics that last more than a year, including voice tics.
Tics can present in the form of eye blinking, nose scrunching, squinting or shrugging of shoulders. Boys are more likely to be affected than girls. Tics are involuntary, and the child has little control over it. Children must learn to cope with the embarrassment that often accompanies the tic. A visit to the family doctor is in order to make sure there is nothing medically wrong.
Some children may develop what are known as vocal tics. These include a sound or noise. Common vocal tics include throat clearing, coughing, sniffing, grunting and humming.
Nervous Habit
Knowing that your child’s nervous habit is not serious should help you deal with it. There are some things you can do to perhaps decrease the frequency of the nervous habits. This includes identifying the cause and helping your child relax. Keep a diary so that you can help note any trends or situations that are associated with the nervous habit. Remember that the best thing is to avoid making the situation a major issue. Often parents blow a situation out of proportion. The child becomes embarrassed, and the tic is accentuated.
The bottom line is that it is not usually a serious medical issue, and your child should outgrow the tic.
Finally, I want to wish all of our readers a healthful summer. I look forward to our yearly trip with the Grisafis and Carneseccas and to taking my grandsons to Coney Island – but not riding the Cyclone yet. Be well.[hr] Dr. Garner is a Fidelis Care provider who is affiliated with New York Methodist Hospital, Park Slope. He also hosts “Ask the Doctor” on The NET, Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Channel 97 Time Warner and Channel 30 Cablevision.
