What are the symptoms of essential tremor?

What are the symptoms of essential tremor?

The key symptom of essential tremor is shaking — usually your hands — when you’re trying to use them. That shaking can take different forms and usually happens under certain circumstances. The forms and circumstances where tremors are likely include:

• Action tremor: This is a form of essential tremor that happens during actions, such as reaching for an object.
• Postural tremor: This is shaking that happens when you hold part of your body in a specific pose, such as holding a hand outstretched and keeping it at the same height.

Essential tremor almost always affects both sides of your body but often affects one side more than the other. In addition to your hands, tremors can affect other parts of your body such as your head, voice, face and trunk.

The tremor itself isn't dangerous, but it can cause problems with everyday activities as the condition worsens. Eventually, people with essential tremor may have trouble with activities such as eating with utensils and drinking from a glass, dressing themselves and writing.

Essential tremor gets better or worse under certain circumstances. Examples include:

May help tremorsMay make tremors worseAlcohol (in small amounts*).Anxiety, fatigue or stress.Rest.Certain medications.Cooling your arm, such as with ice or cold packs.Exercise.Illness.Electrolyte, thyroid or blood sugar problems.

*You shouldn’t self-treat with alcohol because of the risk of alcohol misuse or addiction. Some medications that treat essential tremor also have severe or dangerous interactions with alcohol. You should talk to your healthcare provider about alcohol use and tremors, and whether or not it’s safe or wise to drink alcohol at all when you have this condition.

Tremor terms

When healthcare providers diagnose essential tremor, they analyze the way the tremors happen. Two key components of tremors are their frequency and their amplitude. The following example explains these terms and what they look like in a hand tremor:

• Amplitude: The amplitude of a tremor is the end-to-end distance your hand travels during a tremor. The larger the distance, the greater the tremor’s amplitude. The tremor amplitude usually increases as the essential tremor progresses and may vary in certain circumstances such as with action or posture.
• Frequency: Each shake of your hand is one tremor cycle. The frequency of a tremor is how many cycles you have in one second. The international unit for cycles per second is a Hertz (abbreviated Hz). Essential tremor usually causes six to 12 tremor cycles per second, but this usually slows down as tremor amplitude increases and can vary from person to person.