Justin was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome at age 4.
He had many vocalizations, facial tics, and vocal tics. He couldn’t control them, and it got to a point where he was being disruptive at school. Justin’s case got rapidly worse, and his reading and writing scores were quickly falling. After the initial visit, we finally felt like someone understood our problems, and better yet, was able to fix them. Within two days of the program, Justin started using more complex expressions like “easy as pie, mom.” In order to encourage him to continue his work, we would tell Justin that if he works hard, the kids won’t laugh at him anymore. One and a half years later, Justin is almost 99 percent better. He will very occasionally make a snorting noise. But, he interacts with friends now, he’s a neater writer, a better reader, and has a normal social life.
Maybe because I live in a small, rural town that’s 100 miles away from a Brain Balance center, people seem resistant to the idea of traveling that far for help. I think that if Brain Balance was very close to us, it would be more accepted. Since others heard that I had to drive 100 miles each way 3 times a week, many people said, “Oh, Angela, I just don’t know if I can do that.” I would say, “I know, it’s hard, but it’s worth it.
