Sleep Apnea and Tic Disorders

Has anyone experienced tics as well as sleep apnea?

I developed tics in the military about the same time as I developed sleep apnea. It's been 10+ years, so I don't remember which occurred first, although I remember the sleep deprivation farther back than I do the tics.
I still don't have my apnea under control (waiting on a new mask due to leaks), so there's no way for me to tell at this point if reversing my sleep deprivation will alleviate or cure these tics.

So, has anyone experienced anything similar? If so, did effective PAP treatment help with the tics?

I will be interested in responses to this as I have a family member who intermittently deals with tics. When a bout flares up we add magnesium. So far the bouts clear up as mysteriously as they appear after a few weeks. He does not have sleep apnea though. Good luck dealing with everything.

Before PAP, I did notice that my tics worsened with sugar and caffeine intake. I tested those two independently to see if it was one or the other, or both. I tested the caffeine effect using caffeine pills or black coffee. They both had about the same worsening effect on my tics.

I have noticed (before PAP) that if my sleep deprivation is worse than normal, the tics are MUCH worse. I tested this by staying up for 48-72 hours on several occasions. This definitely had a bigger impact on the tics than did the caffeine and sugar. I also tested staying up for 48-72 hours with the help of sugar and caffeine. It was so bad that someone actually asked me if I had been using meth. Of course, that was also at the bar after staying up for 72 hours and living on sugar and cafffeine.

Alcohol, coupled with being really tired (not necessarily staying up all night....just extending my day into the night and early hours of the next day) also exacerbates the tics. I'm exhausted as soon as I wake up anyway, so staying up past 10PM just makes me even more sleep deprived. Maybe because it depresses CNS function? Who knows? I cut my drinking WAY back as well (not just because of the tics, but because it was becoming a crutch). To maybe a couple drinks a month.

Lately, I've been on a High Fat, Low Carb (HFLC) diet in the hopes that reducing my carbohydrate intake (even more than just cutting out sugar) would have a more profound effect on decreasing the frequency of my tics. It definitely does. It's nothing I can quantify because I don't feel like counting them all day for several days in a row. Talk about depressing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the last hurdle is getting my PAP therapy dialed in 100%. That will be the true test of whether my tics are caused by sleep deprivation, or just made worse by it. I'm really hoping that it's the cause and not an aggravator, as I would really like this to just be gone.

Regardless, I'd still like to hear if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Anyone?


Bueller?


Bueller?

I have a belief that infections can cause neuroligiska symptoms like tics, tremors and even sleep apnea. I have had tremors in hands and tics in one eye, but it all disappeared after a 6-week antibiotic treatment. At the same time, I started to eat LCHF (low carb, high fat) so I can not say what it was that made it disappeared. Or it interact at both the antibiotic and the low calorie intake. Bacteria need carbohydrates to proliferate.
A relationship is somehow anyway I think.
I've written a post here earlier about this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=94761&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I'm on a LCHF diet now, and it has helped decrease the severity of tics, but they're still there.

I actually had a MRSA infection about 5 years ago, and was on antibiotics for about 2 weeks. My tics didn't abate then, so I'm not sure that it would help even when coupled with HFLC. Granted, I didn't specifically use them to see if my tics would disappear, but I'm pretty sure I would've noticed if my tics had improved.

My last ditch hope is that it's the sleep deprivation. Perhaps that's what caused it to begin with and the carbohydrate I was eating was exacerbating it (either because it was feeding those bacteria, or because the sugar and caffeine was just too much for me). So, I'm hoping that getting rid of the sleep deprivation will work. I guess time will tell.

I am on Provigil right now, which helps mask my symptoms of EDS, and will continue using it until the PAP treatment actually kicks in. It does make the tics a bit worse, but nowhere near as bad as eating LFHC.

As an aside, I did the 23andMe genetic testing and found out that I'm a slow metabolizer of caffeine. I had already cut all caffeine out of my diet before I got the results, but it did confirm my suspicions. Caffeine is just WAY too much for me. I feel like I'm on adderall or vyvanse when I use caffeine, but without the clear-headedness that comes with those drugs. All I get is the fidgeting, nervousness, and twitching associated with high caffeine intake.