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One of the guests of the second bonus of the “Star Academy”, Lewis Capaldi, revealed to suffer from the syndrome of Gilles de la Tourette.
Several Internet users had noticed certain tics in the Scottish artist. Repetitive movements due to an unknown disease: Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.
Tics linked to generalized anxiety disorder
Tourette’s syndrome is characterized by the presence of motor tics – brief and intermittent – and at least one vocal tic. According to the Institut du Cerveau, the disease affects approximately one in 2000 people in France and more often boys than girls.
A syndrome that the singer Lewis Capaldi knows well, he who has to live with these symptoms on a daily basis.
“JI often have a twitch in the shoulder. And in the comments of TikTok videos and such, people are like, ‘why is he having spasms?’, which is good. Curiosity is good. But some people are like, ‘oh, he has to take cocaine’. Do you think before I perform in front of 20,000 people, as an anxious person, I’m going to take a big line of cocaine? It’s never going to happen“.
A syndrome difficult to bear because omnipresent, according to the musician.
“The worst part is when I’m excited I have it, when I’m happy I have it, and when I’m stressed I have it. It happens all the time. Some days it hurts more than others.”
To get better, Lewis Capaldi says he uses drugs to treat his generalized anxiety (the cause of his tics), but also botox injections.
“It’s a new thing, I haven’t really learned much about it – I’m learning, he explains. I had Botox on my shoulder to keep it from moving. It worked a bit.”
However, there is no treatment that can cure or treat the cause of this disease. The treatments are different depending on the severity of the tics and the response to drug treatments. They aim to reduce symptoms such as neuroleptics or agonist molecules of certain neurotransmitters in order to improve the daily lives of patients and their school or professional integration. Regular follow-up by psychotherapy, speech therapy or psychomotricity can also be proposed.