Essential Tremor

An essential tremor is a disorder that causes uncontrollable shaking of your hands, arms and other body parts. It can disrupt everyday activities. Some individuals can have anxiety or feel embarrassed about the symptoms they are experiencing.

The difference between essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease is that with essential tremors, it often runs in families (familial tremor), and solely involves the tremor, usually occurs on both sides of the body, but one side may be slightly more affected than the other, and the tremors often involve the head and neck and almost never involve the legs and feet.

Essential tremor is a condition that gets worse slowly, taking years to reach levels where it starts to disrupt a person’s life. As the condition worsens, it can cause problems with fine  detailed work and activities such as handwriting, using eating utensils, sewing or tasks that require precision. Severe effects can take place such as certain individuals may not be able to feed themselves or even cook because of how severely their hands shake. Others may not be able to write, dress, bathe or otherwise take care of themselves. An interesting fact is that the average rate that arm or hand tremors get worse is between 1.5% and 5% a year. It is a permanent, life-long condition once it starts. It often gets worse when you’re tired, stressed, anxious or upset. Learn the things that make your tremors worse, and try to avoid them.

Your health care provider can diagnose essential tremor based on your symptoms and a neurological examination. When the provider suspects essential tremor, they may have to rule out other conditions and would order blood tests, genetic testing, CT, MRI, or a PET scan.

There is no cure for essential tremor, but there are treatments available such as medications, assistive devices, botulinum toxin, deep brain stimulation and focused ultrasound. The recovery time from the various treatments depends on many factors, especially the treatments themselves. Your health care provider can consider all the factors and give you information that’s  relevant to your specific case and circumstances.

Have a happy day!