Nervous tic: causes and treatment in adults. Types of nerve ticks

What are facial tics ? These are uncontrolled muscle spasms, involuntary muscular contractions. Most often the patient has a rapid blinking eyelashes, sharp jerking movements of the eyes or wrinkling of the nose. Similar phenomena are also called mimic spasms. Although they occur involuntarily, that is, regardless of the desire or unwillingness of a person, they can be temporarily suppressed by conscious effort.

A variety of diseases and conditions can cause a problem such as a nervous tic. Causes and treatment in adults are considered quite rare, as most pathology is diagnosed in children with various neurological disorders. However, adult patients also complain of ticking often enough. This phenomenon is most often found in males than in girls and women.

Kinds of tics

Medicine knows a number of different tics, which significantly differ from each other in the prerequisites, clinical manifestations and severity of the condition. By the intensity and frequency of muscle spasms, it is often possible to diagnose a primary neurological disorder.

Transient teak disorders

Most often doctors face such a symptom as transient nervous tic. Causes and treatment in adults are characterized by comparative ease - such disorders in most cases go by themselves. Involuntary muscle movements at the same time last for a long time and can be repeated every day for a month or longer, but the total duration does not exceed one year.

The tick of this variety implies an irresistible desire to make a certain movement and even publish a specific sound. It can be expressed as follows:

• Frequent blinking of the eyes;
• Inflammation of the nostrils;
• Eyebrow lift;
• Opening the mouth;
• Clicking with the tongue;
• Clearing of the throat;
• grunt.

Treatment, as a rule, is not required.

Chronic motor tics

This disorder is less common than transient ticks, but more often than Tourette's syndrome. To establish the diagnosis of "chronic motor nervous tic" (causes and treatment in adults are discussed below), the patient should have observed muscle spasms for several years, with each attack lasting more than three months.

Excessive blinking of eyelashes, twisting and twitching of eyes are most common. Unlike the transient ticks described above, chronic motor spasms do not stop even during sleep.

While children usually do not need therapy, adult patients are recommended to consult a specialist - especially if the face is involuntarily distorted in grimaces or twitches the eye. Treatment will depend on the intensity of the manifestations of the disorder.

Tourette's Syndrome

Although Tourette's syndrome is considered a child's disease, it is often observed in adulthood, especially if the child has a severe form of pathology and has not received timely adequate treatment. When is this nerve tick diagnosed? Symptoms from the following list allow you to identify Tourette's syndrome:

• Waving hands;
• Tongue sticking out;
• shrug;
• Touching the intimate parts of your body;
• Uttering abusive words;
• Obscene gestures.

To establish the diagnosis of "Tourette's syndrome," the patient must suffer from voice ticks along with physical disorders. Vocal tics include excessive hiccups, frequent cleansing of the throat and constant communication on elevated tones (screams) for no apparent reason. Some people too often repeat abusive (abusive) expressions or any one word or phrase.

In case the patient is a child, the methods of behavioral psychotherapy are usually enough to cure such an unpleasant symptom as a nervous tic. Causes and treatment in adults in comparison are more serious, so in severe cases, doctors often prescribe medication.

Causes and risk factors

The root cause of a tick of any variety is a neurological disorder, which can be determined only by a qualified physician. However, some circumstances are able to activate the "sleeping" pathology and complicate the course of the primary disease. In addition, exposure to risk factors leads to an increase in the frequency and intensity of tics. Such factors include:

• stress;
• Excessive excitement;
• fatigue;
• Increased body temperature;
• Stimulating drugs;
• Hyperactivity disorder with attention deficit;
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Diagnostics

Among the listed disorders, it is relatively easy to diagnose the nervous tic of the eye. The reasons and treatment will depend on the initial pathology, so after discussing the symptoms, the doctor is likely to redirect you to a psychologist to assess the state of your psyche.

It is very important to immediately eliminate the possible causes of teak physiological diseases. The doctor will ask you to clarify whether you are seeing other symptoms of ailment before deciding to conduct diagnostic tests. You may need an electroencephalogram (EEG), which will measure the electrical activity of the brain. This examination helps to identify epilepsy, which can cause a problem such as a nervous tic of the eye.

Causes and treatment are also predetermined by the results of electromyography - a survey conducted to detect abnormalities in the functioning of muscles or nerves. Since the tick represents primarily muscular spasm in the background of neurology, the results of EMG can have a significant effect on the choice of the method of therapy.

How to distinguish a tick from the illness of Lou Gehrig

• Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a rare disorder, while a variety of types of tics, including not only facial spasms, but also atypical manifestations such as the nervous tic of the finger, are a very common problem .
• Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis suffer primarily from muscle weakness, and only secondarily from involuntary muscular contractions. In a tick, the need for involuntary movements initially arises, which in some cases may be accompanied by a chronic sense of fatigue.
• Often with both pathologies, the patient jerks his eye. Treatment, as a rule, has no obvious effect, since the common tick is a symptom, not a disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis simply does not respond to therapy. Nevertheless, the nature of spasm in these disorders is significantly different: an ordinary motor disorder begins in one part of the face or body and can eventually migrate to another site, while spasms in ALS starting at one place, over time, cover the entire body.
• With transient and chronic motor disorders, involuntary contractions occur in healthy muscle tissue. With Lou Gehrig's disease, spasm is caused by the gradual necrosis of the muscles. This difference can be observed firsthand in electromyography, which gives normal results with a simple tick and indicates the presence of severe pathology with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Treatment

Ordinary tics do not require special treatment, because they pass by themselves and are not an independent disease. However, an adult patient may need therapy if this disorder interferes with full-fledged work or a normal social life.

If you are diagnosed with a nervous tic, what should you do to get rid of it? The most common methods of treating tics are:

• Programs to reduce psychological stress, training in stress management;
• psychotherapy;
• Behavioral therapy;
• Taking drugs that block dopamine;
• Taking medications to treat the root cause of the pathology, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder;
• Injections of botox to create the effect of temporary paralysis of the facial muscles.