Dear Ann Landers,
When our son was 5, he started to blink his eyes a lot. I mentioned this to his pediatrician who said, Just ignore it. A year later, Joey began to shrug his shoulders and fidget a great deal. Just nervous tics, the doctor assured me. He'll outgrow it. These symptoms and others would come and go. I almost went crazy trying to protect Joey from anything that might produce stress. I took the boy to three other pediatricians and was told I should not be concerned because there was nothing to worry about. After doing some research on my own, I insisted that our pediatri-cian refer Joey to a pediatric neurologist. Sure enough, the diagnosis was Tourette's syndrome. The boy was put on medication and has dra-matically improved. Ann, I'm writing to you because half the people I've met whose chil-dren have Tourette's syndrome told me they first became aware of this illness when they read about it in your column. You had correctly di-agnosed Tourette's syndrome from the description in a letter of some-one's behavior. You then listed what types of things to look for. Will you please tell parents again that if their child develops tics or engages in repetitive blinking, shoulder shrugging, grimacing, tensing muscles, throat clearing, belching, sniffing, humming, etc., they should contact the Tourette Syndrome Association for information. Send a large, self-addressed, stamped (75 cents) envelope to: The Tourette Syndrome Association, 42-40 Bell Blvd., Suite 205, Bayside, NY 11361, or call (718) 224-2999. Thank you. -Longtime Reader

Dear L.T.R.,
That original column diagnosis was made several years ago, and I am still hearing about it. The symptoms were so obvi-ous to me that I felt safe in labeling the problem. The credit should go to the many fine physicians who have gone out of their way to send me material and keep me informed.