Against Medical Advice – A Study of Tourette’s Syndrome

This nonfiction biography written by a well known novelist, James Patterson, and and the subject’s father, Hal Friedman, is a very stirring story of a young boy smitten with a severe disease known as Tourette’s Syndrome. Tourette’s Syndrome was first described by a French physician in 1885. The syndrome includes multiple motor and vocal tics that are involuntary urges completely outside the control of the patient. They include repetitive thoughts, uncontrolled motions repeating other peoples movements, inappropriate words , and obscene gestures. The syndrome can be associated with attention deficit syndrome and obsessive compulsive behaviour.

This boy’s story begins at the age of four when he began having facial tics including nose twitching and grimacing. He was most bothered by uncontrolled blinking.His body activities would become so violent at times that he broke several teeth. At times he would have so much involuntary motor activity that the tics would go on all night to the point that he would break part of the supports of his bed. His verbal behavior was so bad that he would use socially inappropriate words accompanied by obscene gestures.

You can imagine the difficulty that his parents were facing in not only the usual daily activities at home but also in trying to keep him in school. From the ages of four to seventeen, his parents met with 12 doctors, each of whom would advice the usage of a new medicine. Most of the drugs were meant to control the severe tics and jerks and would be included in the neuropsychiatric class of drugs known as antidepressants,sedatives and tranquilizers. It becomes obvious to the boy and his parents that each of these physicians is searching for something to help him, but that none of them know quite what to do.

Things worsen as he goes into his teen years as they have him on a neuropsychiatric drug called resperidol which in turn makes him gain weight. He weighs a whopping 340 pounds and is more destructive when he has his bad uncontrolled jerks and tics. He describes that all of the tiles in his shower are broken from this violent activity

He then finds that the only relief that he can get is from alcohol which leads to an alcohol addiction. He is also addicted to nicotine. In addition he is taking a large combination of his usual sedatives, tranquilizers and antidepressants prescribed by his physicians. One night when he passes out from alcohol, he almost burns the house down from a cigarette. It was at this point that his parents with the advice of his physician admit him to a detox unit. But when they arrive at the facility and are ready to admit him, he begs them not to abandon him there and they subsequently sign him out AMA [against medical advice].

He has missed a great deal of school even though he is still a junior in high school at the age of seventeen. His father persuades him to go to a survival camp in the mountains of Wyoming during winter. It is during this survival experience he is able to get off of alcohol, nicotine and the other nuerosphysciatric drugs and also loses 100 pounds in weight. When he returns home, through a biofeed back therapy, he learns to control his abnormal behavior. The next hurdle for him is to be accepted back into school for his regular age level. The beauty of this story occurs when his mother, who has been his best support system throughout this entire ordeal, pleads his case before the school authorities and they eventually allow him to return to school. [This part of the book will bring tears to your eyes.]

As with most Tourette’s victims, he proves to be of high intelligence. With his new ability to control his actions and behavior [and off drugs], he graduates on time and high in his class. He receives a scholarship from Syracuse University. Because his professors were so impressed with his computer marketing skills, he was offered his own office in the Information Studies School at Syracuse.

I would encourage you read this very moving true story about a boy from age 4 to 17 who was able to overcome great odds by finding his own inner strength in spite of the lack of knowledge on the part of medical science in treating Tourette’s Syndrome.

By: Amilu Stewart

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