How was I diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome?

      At the age of fifteen, I had an intense knee surgery, shortly after my family noticed that I was doing this weird shiver thing all of the time.  It started to worry my mom, so we started to research it.  The first test we did was a seizure test.  I was sleep deprived for 24 hours, then they put all of the EEG wires on my and put a strobe light in my face for five minutes, and lastly I was required to sleep while they watched me and my brain waves.  This test showed nothing.  

     Next went to Primary Children’s to start working with a neurologist.  I had to stay in the hospital for three days with all of the EEG wires on my head.  The results showed no brain activity during the tics.  This proved that it was not a seizure, but just twitching.  Therefore, I was diagnosed as CTD, Complex tic disorder because my tics used multiple muscle groups.  

     Once an official diagnosis had been made, my neurologist started me on the medication Clonidine.  The basic concept of the medication is to make your body to tired to sleep.  But even on a low dose, I was too tired to even walk a few steps.  I have multiple scars on my back because if I tried to walk to far (like from the couch to the kitchen) I would pass out, occasionally falling on things or hitting something.  I hated this because my mild twitches were gone, but there was no quality of life.  So I quit my medication cold turkey.  This caused me to develop two more tics.  I tried medication after medication and they did help my tics, but the side effects (weight gain, weight loss, nausea, passing out, lethargic, dizziness, nervousness, agitation and headaches) were not worth it.  

     Eventually, I quit all medications, but then I developed three more tics.  Now, five years later, I have six tics.  Occasionally they will change but I usually keep six tics with a medium intensity.