Question: Hi,
Thank you for your time. I have a 15 year old little brother that has Asperger's Syndrome. He has always had the typical behaviors of an Asperger's child, such as lining things up and repeating words or phrases to himself. But suddenly over the past few months he has developed new ticks that are alarming to my family and I. He is smacking his lips and swallowing constantly. When he swallows, his eyes roll in the back of his head. He has become withdrawn and stares at himself in the mirror. He also has a more stiff posture and sits straight up constantly meaning he never looks relaxed. He flaps his hands and shakes his legs when we are around strangers as well. We have taken him to get 2 X-Rays and a barium swallow to make sure that there are no esophageal obstructions or anything preventing him from swallowing/breathing and everything has come back perfect with no abnormalities. His blood work showed a Vitamin D deficiency at 21 and a low GFR. But, his white blood cell count as well as everything else was fine. This is due to dehydration and a poor diet because he is so picky about what he eats. He also stays indoors a majority of the time so the Vitamin D deficiency didn't come as a XXXXXXX He has also not had a bowel movement in 4 days now. What we are most afraid of is these newly developed ticks actually being something such as Epilepsy or worse. I would like to add that our family has been under an extreme amount of stress lately with moving and frequent fighting between parents. Could he have developed this ticks and is acting out on them so frequently now because of the amount of stress? Or do you believe it is something else? Could he be withdrawn because of the stress? He promises that he does not feel any pain or discomfort but he just looks so uncomfortable. Please help. He is our life and we have a lot of sleepless nights worrying about this now. Thank you.

Dr. XXXXXXX XXXXXXX

Thank you for your quick response. Is this an emergency situation that we need to go ahead and take him to the emergency room for, or will he be ok in enough time to wait until a consultation with a neurologist? I just don't want to wait days or a week and it cause him mental damage or even death. Right now we are just surrounding him with nothing but positivity and all of the things he enjoys while increasing his fluid intake, making sure he eats frequent high caloric meals, and giving him Vitamin D supplements. I check his respirations constantly and his pulse and both are within normal range. I have read that during a seizure episode the person can not be distracted out of the seizure and cannot hear anything you are saying to them. During my little brother's episodes that is not the case. He can hear everything we are saying and if we call his name or wave or hand he comes back out of it. Is this a good sign?

Thank you again,
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