Hallelujah!!!!
Self-injurious tics seem to be fading away, making way for our new little Jazzerciser!!!

No, he's not really taking classes, but it looks like he is.

New tic: Take a few steps forward, jump, lift arms above head, then lower and bend forward, just until your fingers dangle between your legs. Stay in position for about five seconds, then repeat.

Alp has not whalloped the his head nor his side in a couple of days. (Woo-hoo!)

We went to Publix (our grocery store) tonight, and he did get some unusual looks, but he got those when he was hitting himself, too. I'll take weird looks over bumps and bruises any day.

To be honest, I wasn't in the best mood when we went there, because one of my daughters was along as well, having a meltdown because I told her she couldn't go to the movies tonight (because she is 11 and the other kids were 13 year olds, there would be no supervision, and they're going to see a PG-13 movie ). Her constant whining and crying already set the tone, and when a man looked at Alp's "sun salutations" and then shook his head in disgust, I wanted to kick him into a blueberry pie. Don't worry, I have enough self-restraint to never do a think like that. I did come close to giving him a piece of my mind, but I knew I wasn't in the mood to be able to do it tactfully, so I just moved on.

We have kept Alp down to one Methyl-aid per day, and he hasn't had anymore strange break-outs, so that must have been the culprit.

The p-doc did up his Risperdal just a little bit (by one mg per day) last week when I called with my concerns, so that could be the reason the tics are less violent. Hmmmm...I actually didn't even make that connection until just now.

We have kept him on the gluten/cassein free diet, but he sneaks little bits of things here and there and doesn't seem to have much of a reaction. When we did experiment with letting him eat a meal full of gluten, however, he got very hyper and then had manic mood swings (from crying to laughing hysterically).