Hi all,
I'm new here and have a little info to add to this thread. The men in my family all suffer from Essential Tremor aka Inherited Tremor. I'm 57 and am just beginning to notice it in my hands when I'm under stress. My father, who died last year at 87 had it so bad he couldn't read his own handwriting and had great difficulty eating, shaving, brushing his teeth or putting a key in a lock. For a while, in FLA, he was getting Botox injections in his forearms to reduce it, but when I moved him away he couldn't get those shots anymore.
The thing that really helped him was an operation called Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS. This involves implanting probes in the brain and battery packs in the upper chest. The battery pack actually sends signals to the probe in the brain to quell the tremors. There's a target area in the brain for ET, another for Parkinson's another for epilepsy, etc. They implant one probe on the right side of the brain for tremors in the left hand and another probe on the left side for the right hand. The patient is semi-awake during this stage of the operation so the neurosurgeons can verify the probe placement. After getting the operation at USC, my father could sign his name better than he had in 30 years! It was incredible.
The battery pack was made by Medtronic. Every 5 years or so they need to go back in to replace it when the battery runs low. They program it wirelessly to send out different kinds of signals and different amplitudes to find the most effective settings.
This was all done via Medicare when my father was in his 80's. If you suffer from this ailment and don't like drug side-effects you should check into this.
Best regards,
Bruceski
