Help Mamas!

[lmk1]

My 4 year old boy has started jerking his whole body since last Wednesday.  At first I thought he was imitating a turkey that we saw on Tuesday night, but he's doing it so frequently, that I'm convinced that he's not playing or pretending.  Just now, I put him to sleep and as he was trying to get comfortable, his body jerked various times ... I really don't think it's a voluntary movement.  I'm not sure if it's a tic, or some muscle disease?  We definitely have a lot of stress going on, moving to a different state later this month, etc...

I'm planning on taking him to the ped  asap, but please someone tell me some stories of your child doing this and it going away without a problem!  I asked him a few times if he was imitating something and sometimes he doesn't answer or says no or says I'm just pretending...like he says "snap" as in the 5 monkeys and the crocodile story.  But again, it doesn't seem to me that it's just play ... he seems to be doing it often...although there are hours and hours that it doesn't happen.

Any ideas please!!!!  I'm scaring myself with the possibilities.

[MistyMommy]

I have dealt with a variety of sporadic tic'ing behaviors from my son for the past 3 years starting at about 5 1/2. I addressed it with the doctor right away and it sounds like you are already headed in that direction. I was worried that it was something brain related and it was definitely scary at the time.

At this time he can go awhile between tics and then they will appear again under times of stress. Stress was a huge factor for my son.  Looking back over his different variety of tics it seemed at times that he was trying out new ones as odd as that may seem.  The whole body ones are the most dramatic and he liked those, I didn't!  For him, they would quickly become a habit if I wasn't on top of asking him to stop right away.  

His doctor felt that his behavior was very habit based as opposed to neurological and wanted to do a wait and see time period before doing any referrals. In my son's case this turned out to be the right thing although he moved from one tic/behavior to the next for almost 2 years.  He has really calmed down this past year though we are having a slight recurrence right now due to a cold that has brought back on a throat clearing/grunting habit. 

Not sure if that helps, hopefully the doctor will be able to provide you with some answers too.