What is Essential Tremor?

I’m not a doctor, fyi, I’m just Twitch! But here’s a general breakdown on ET 101. I’ll add a link below from Wikipedia so you can see the appropriately credited medical community’s breakdown on this condition.

Essential Tremor, also known as familial tremor among other names, is a neurological condition where parts of the body shake or tremor involuntarily. Often first manifested in the hands, it can also develop in the voice, head and legs. Often confused with or misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s Disease (PD), the difference, particularly with tremor, is that PD tremors are resting tremors. ET tremors occur whilst in action. 

So fellow ET suffers typically don’t shake at rest or whilst sleeping. However, physical or emotional stressors exacerbate the severity of tremors. It is a progressive condition (oh, how fun!) though typically doesn’t progress as severely as PD.

Fun Fact: Did you know Kathrine Hepburn had ET? 

ET often manifests in people after age 40, and it’s more common in women than men. However, a lot of kids and young people develop symptoms early on. Many, yours truly included, thought it was normal as a kid to shake upon waking up in the morning and shake getting that first sip of water from the nightstand. Never thought anything of it. As of this writing, I’m 44. The tremors were increasingly noticeable and embarrassing when colleagues would start pointing out that my hands were shaking, about 12-15 years ago. I had no clue what was going on, just shrugged it off and said I’ve must have had too much coffee. 

Well, obviously it’s gotten worse, so instead of hiding under a rock, I decided to own IT, as much as least as IT owns me. Hence my IETF support group on Facebook and this blog.

Here’s the Wiki link and see you on the next post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_tremor