It has been a little over a year since I was diagnosed with Essential Tremor, and though my symptoms have been dramatically reduced by faithfully taking my daily medications, I still have my good days and bad days. In order to help prevent additional symptoms from occurring, I have tried to change the way that I live my life by doing what I can to reduce the stress in my life, and for the first time in my life I try make sure that I get plenty of sleep. (I have been the consummate "Night Person" for most of my life, so having a "normal" amount of sleep is a foreign concept to me.)
That being said, I have recently noticed an interesting development in my Essential Tremor symptoms: my tremors have seemed to take over in several unexpected ways. Here is what I mean by that: Essential Tremors are "action related" tremors. meaning that tremors develop when I am trying to complete a task, and I have mentioned in previous blogs that tremors have been especially annoying when I am trying to eat or play a musical instrument.
The way that my usual tremors have been manifesting themselves is that I begin an action, and some sort of action continues after my brain has told my body to stop moving. This often happens when I am typing on a computer, or using a mouse, or playing guitar, or turning pages in a book, or some other common action that requires fine motor skills. So the basic flow of events is for a conscious action to take place, followed by an unconscious action in the form of tremors.
But with that in mind, there have been several unanticipated situations where tremors have recently emerged, and here are just a few examples: cold chills, yawning, and reactions to loud noises. Believe it or not, several times over the past few months those trivial actions have been enough for tremors to kick in.
Have you ever had a cold chill? Of course you have; your body shakes for a moment and then the cold chill is over. But for me, I often continue to shake or cringe painfully for a few additional moments. For all intents and purposes, my tremors have amplified my cold chills, so on cold days I find myself getting headaches from the number of shaking episodes that I encounter, and my muscles are sore by the end of the day as I try to flex my muscles to combat the unnecessary reactions. Yawning has had a similar effect; sometimes my hands will shake while I yawn, and recently my hands have continued to shake after I have ceased yawning.
Although I have to say, suffering from tremors when reacting to loud noises has completely caught me off guard. I was listening to a public speaker earlier today, and the sound guy had the speaker's volume up a little too high. As a result, I would cringe a little whenever the speaker was unnecessarily emphatic while making a point. However, my tremors would take over after I cringed, and I would react like I had just suffered a cold chill; my muscles would painfully contract involuntarily, which started to give me a headache.
All of this is to say, these new developments in my Essential Tremor symptoms were completely unexpected. I had presumed that I would continue to have problems when eating, typing, or playing guitar. But cold chills? Yawning? Loud noises? Seriously???
What a pain in the neck. (Literally.)
PS - I made hundreds of typing mistakes while writing this blog. Unfortunately, this appears to have been one of my bad days for tremors.
