Essential
Tremor
Have you ever seen people in public whose hand or hands
shake? Have you thought to yourself, they must have Parkinson’s
or maybe they had to much to drink? Sometimes you may even
make fun of them or try not to be around them.
Each day you get up and brush your teeth, button your shirt,
tie your laces, and can hold a cup of coffee, but people
with advance tremor can only do this with great difficulty.
Most people with the disorder don`t even have a social life
or go to great lengths to hide the shaking, they avoid holding
anything or will use 2 hands, but most avoid doing anything
that would draw attention to themselves.
In public or around strangers most will avoid eating and
drinking until they can do it unobserved.
ARE YOU AFFECTED and WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS
Essential Tremor (ET) is the most common form of tremor.
ET was called benign tremor but there is nothing benign
about it. It is often mistaken for Parkinson’s, and can
affect people of any age. This is being written to enlighten
and inform people of the disorder.
The disorder will usually get worse with age. Today there
are more than 20 different kinds of tremor, so don’t be misdiagnosed.
ET can be involuntary, oscillating, wobbling, rhythm tic,
or a movement or shaking of your head, arm, hand, or torso
or a combination of these.
It can occur on one side or both sides of the body. Common
types of tremor are: resting, postural, task specific, Essential
and Parkinson’s.
A family history will be present but not always. Millions
of people are affected by tremor in the US alone. ET is a
neurological disorder that is more common with the aging
but can be present at any age, with mine it surfaced at the
age of 17.
Defining ET: Postural tremor occurs in the arms and hands
during action and no action or drugs known to cause are present.
Head, voice and neck tremor may or may not be present and
no other known factors causing this are present.
ET causes uncontrollable shaking of the hands, voice, torso,
head, legs and other parts of the body and will increase
in severity when trying to perform an action of any kind.
If you have the disorder or know someone who has seek out
a neurologist who has training in this field. In my case
a neurosurgeon was found who was also teaching the subject
in our local medical school.
WHAT ARE THE CURES
Many different drugs are available to treat
ET, such as Propanonol, Primidone, Sotalol, Atenolol and
various others.
Before much was known about the disorder
even valium was prescribed because it was belived to be"just your nerves",
some medical people still believe this because they don`t
know about tremor. The older treatment involves cutting away
part of the thalamus.
While the different drugs will help, they will not completely
do away with the symptoms but will help manage them and improve
the daily lives of those affected. As time goes by the drugs
will have less and less effect and dosage will have to be
increased, as in my case, years went by and maximum dosage
was reached without effect and the new surgery was opted
for.
When all else fails to control the disorder you can fall
back on surgery with brain stimulators, which will interfere
with or block the bad signals the brain sends and therefore
helps the tremor to not happen. This type of surgery has
fewer complications than other surgery and is also reversible.
The surgery sounds scary but the procedure, while being
a little uncomfortable and with the fact you have to be awake
during the procedure, isn`t as bad as it sounds, and when
you see the results a couple months later you know it was
worth it.
This surgery is the best for long term, and
the results are hard to believe at first, no more drugs,
a social life, a job you have always wanted, no more
hiding.
With deep brain stimulators you can lead a more normal
life.
see your doctor for more info
copyright
JW Boxley
Author
JW Boxley
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but credit must be given to the author and also a link
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