I’ve mentioned the amazing treatment I’ve been having recently at Kings College Hospital. Since I injured my ankle due to a tic, I’ve had help from several different departments there, and the care has been fantastic. This morning I went for an orthotics appointment, arranged by my physiotherapist.…

I had a physio appointment this morning. My ankle is getting much stronger and less painful but I’m still wearing the protective boot. The main problem is that the leg tic responsible for this injury persists.

The physiotherapist is brilliant. She hasn’t treated anyone with tics before but is really thoughtful in her approach to me.…

While working on my laptop on Thursday I ticced and head-butted it. The bridge of my nose hit the edge of the screen and it was incredibly painful. I felt a massive lump come up almost instantly but thankfully Leftwing Idiot was equally fast with some frozen peas to help ease the swelling and make me look less like an extra from Avatar.…

The report from the physiotherapist who assessed me last week when I ended up in A&E arrived today. It detailed thoroughly what had happened and what had been done. The physio described my tics as Dystonic movements. I didn’t know what this meant so I’ve just looked it up online and this is what I learnt about the medical classification of motor tics and other involuntary movements:

Clonic tics are sudden jerks of a muscle or limb.…

Today didn’t go according to plan.

Thankfully, sixty-three years ago Sir William Beveridge’s plan for a national health service became a reality, and it was his NHS that came to my rescue today.

On my way to work, accompanied by Leftwing Idiot, I hurt my leg badly when it suddenly ticced at the bottom of the stairs.…

At the start of the year I went to see my dentist to have my teeth cleaned and scaled. He decided to refer me to the local dental hospital because my tics were making it pretty tricky for him to do very much.…

On Friday I had my second appointment for Habit Reversal Therapy. During the session the therapist said he thought the muscle groups involved in my tics have got stuck with only two settings: relaxed (not in use at all), or maximum tension and ticcing.…

Yesterday’s dilemma is resolved. I was unsure whether to carry on taking the medication for my tics because it’d been making me feel lousy. I didn’t take it last night and today I’m feeling much better. So my decision was clearly the right one.…

A couple of days ago I started a course of medication for Tourettes, but now I’m faced with the tricky decision about whether to go on with it. It’s a drug I’d been on a couple of years ago but I gave it up when it stopped working.…

Last week I had Botox injections in the back of my neck with the aim of weakening the muscles there and preventing my head tics causing permanent damage. But my neck’s more painful now than it was before.

It gets worse when I’m holding my head at a particular angle, like when I was wrapping Christmas presents with King Russell this evening.…