Essential tremor: What is it and how is it treated
Essential tremor is a syndrome often confused with Parkinson's disease. Essential tremor is a condition in which you experience tremors in your body. This can include your entire body, as in Parkinson's, or it can occur in just one part of your body. These tremors can affect your daily activities quite a bit, so it is appropriate to explore the right steps to learn to cope with them.
Therefore, in this blog I will discuss what essential tremor actually is, what treatments are available and what mental treatments do for people with this syndrome.
Essential Tremor
Essential tremor is a neurological disorder that causes tremors in the body. Just as with Parkinson’s disease, something happens in the brain—specifically involving the receptors. However, essential tremor involves activity in the brainstem, whereas Parkinson’s disease involves dopamine receptors. So the comparison ends there ( 1).
With essential tremor, people mainly experience tremors in the arms when they want to do something with them, such as grasping something that is higher up. Nearly 95% of patients with essential tremor suffer from this.
In general, people with essential tremor suffer from tremors of the hands, arms, head, vocal cords, tongue and chin. Essential tremor can be recognized by more than just tremors, namely:
- Uncontrolled shaking for shorter periods of time.
- Vibrating voice.
- Nodding Head.
- Tremors that get worse during emotional stress.
- Vibrations that get worse when you want to move something purposefully.
- Vibration reducing during rest.
- Impaired sense of balance (sometimes).
Lower parts of the body do not usually suffer from essential tremors.
With essential tremor, you do not have to suffer from the tremors if you do nothing, but this does occur in some forms of essential tremor to a similar degree to Parkinson's.
But in general, tremors during rest are suppressed in people with essential tremor.
The reason why essential tremor is often compared to Parkinson's is because it is diagnosed primarily by ruling out other conditions, such as Parkinson's and dystonia. These are also often the diseases that are confused with it when misdiagnosed( 2).
In addition, the tremors are also similar to symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis, fatigue after exercise, tremors caused by emotional stress ( anxiety), brain tumors, tremors during alcohol or drug withdrawal , and it can also sometimes be a side effect of medication or metabolic issues.
So always get checked by a doctor before diagnosing yourself.
In the process, there are different subtypes of essential tremor. This is in part because not everyone suffers from tremor in the same location and because of additional symptoms that are also not the same for everyone.
Essential tremor is a progressive condition. It starts out mild but gets worse as you get older. However, there is debate over whether it is a condition in which brain function degenerates, particularly because some forms of essential tremor appear to lead to Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. This may not be the case for all forms of this condition; your doctor can tell you more about your risk based on your specific form of essential tremor.
Currently, essential tremor is not life-threatening, unless the tremors make you unable to care for yourself. Eating, dressing and writing do become a lot more difficult because of the tremors, and that can be very frustrating.
However, it is often possible to continue eating and drinking and therefore it is generally not life-threatening.
Possible causes of essential tremor
There is no clear cause of essential tremor yet. The only thing that is clear is that the thalamus, a part of your brain, suddenly has more electrical charge and therefore transmits signals that cause the tremors.
In half the cases, essential tremor runs in the family and genetic factors can be identified as the cause.
Essential tremor can basically occur at any age, but begins for most people between the ages of 40 and 50 ( 3).
Current treatment of essential tremor
There is no cure for people with essential tremor, but medication and surgery can alleviate symptoms.
Medications used for essential tremor consist mainly of beta-blockers, primidone and other medications that affect receptors and chemical processes in the brain.
In addition, brain surgery can be undergone.
However, taking medication and undergoing surgery is not without risks( 4).
Also still available is ultrasound therapy that affects parts of the thalamus. This treatment takes place while awake and under the guidance of an MRI scan.
Hypnosis and essential tremor
Hypnosis and other psychological treatments also help with symptoms linked to essential tremor. Many people who suffer from this condition experience symptoms such as depression, anxiety, apathy, and more.
In addition, emotional stress can exacerbate tremors in some cases.
Research also shows that people (65 percent of participants) who suffer from this condition avoid social situations because they are embarrassed by the tremors( 5).
It is also recommended to seek psychological help for these symptoms. This will help you better deal with emotions caused by the essential tremor and reduce frustration.
Especially for controlling emotions and reducing depressive symptoms, hypnotherapy can provide a solution.
The tremor can cause you to develop certain new beliefs that have a depressing effect on your thoughts and emotions. Hypnosis can reinforce therapies for depressive symptoms, such as cognitive behavioral therapy.
Vibration while doing nothing
In most cases, people with essential tremor do not experience tremors when they are at rest, but sometimes they do. This may be because strong emotions influence the tremors. For example, even if you are not doing anything, but you feel nervous before a presentation, you may still experience tremors due to that nervousness.
Hypnotherapy can then help get rid of tremors in rest. There are cases of people with essential tremor who do not suffer from tremors during hypnosis, but who actually experience tremors after hypnosis.
This stopping of vibrations during hypnosis may be because hypnosis allows you to completely relax and thus also temporarily not be affected by emotions that affect the vibrations.
To enhance this effect at home, you can use self-hypnosis. During hypnotherapy, your therapist can help you determine which forms of self-hypnosis can help reduce the symptoms of essential tremor.
Self-hypnosis exercises can include:
- Repeating suggestions.
- Visualizations of a fine place.
- Focus on breathing.
Suggestions
Repeating suggestions aims to weaken beliefs that get in the way of your life's happiness and replace them with beliefs that don't stop you from doing what you enjoy. For example, the suggestions can be about social events and how to think about other people's reactions to your essential tremor.
For example, you may have a fear that people will think it looks silly or funny, when in fact most people will find it annoying for you if you suffer from this. You really won't be seen as the clown by everyone if the vibrations make you awkward.
So in addition, a hypnotherapist can give you personal suggestions that apply to your fears if the previous example does not seem familiar to you.
Visualizations
Visualizing a nice place aims to help you relax properly and release negative emotions. Emotional stress can actually worsen tremors.
By visualizing a place where you can completely unwind—such as a beach or a forest—you can reduce feelings of frustration or anger.
Breathing
If you notice that visualization makes you feel content and happy , but that heightened emotion causes tremors, you can also keep your focus on your breathing. This is usually the first step in self-hypnosis to enter the state of relaxation in which these exercises are most effective.
When focusing on breathing, you lie on your back and place your hands on your abdomen. Then you feel how your breathing goes through the abdomen and causes your hands to be pushed up and lowered as you exhale.
In addition, you can deepen your focus by also checking the sensation of breathing through your nose and into your lungs. You don't have to control the breathing, but if you feel comfortable doing so, of course you may. Then try to give the inhalation and exhalation the same length of time.
In some cases, a hypnotherapist can provide you with an mp3 recorded just for you to repeat suggestions, guide your visualization or help you relax completely with your breathing.
Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and other mental techniques and how they influence your perception of the world? Then come to a seminar or check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Sources:
http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(03)00259-6/abstract
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11910-013-0378-8
http://www.webmd.com/brain/essential-tremor-basics#1