Quote:
Originally Posted by silverwing
Genealogy can be a very useful tool to track family medical history.
Through message board posts, and columns in census forms (I wish there had been consistency. it seemed that each enumeration was changed to ask about different maladies) I noted that descendants of one particular surname had a high number of people who claimed "blindness". In the 19th century; even into the early 20th; folks didn't have a particular diagnosis. Nowadays, that genetic issue has been found to be macular degeneration. My mother and her brother suffer(ed) from it, my siblings and I have been proactive in getting regular eye checkups.
As to your condition, my two sisters and I suffer the benign essential tremors. It seems to run along the female line of the family. For us, it's been a manageable condition. My older sister has been a successful beautician for almost 40 years, even though her hands shake terribly.
I've found it interesting to compare attitudes between generations about diseases "passed down." Old family scandals were repeated with relish, medical issues were different. I suppose it had something to do with the viability of a family line; people didn't want to worry about marrying someone who might produce defective offspring; but topics like blindness or palsy were referred to in furtive discussions. Even my mother, now in her 70s, tried to shut me down when I asked her about our genetic maladies. I'd frame it in a matter that said "we need to know about things. modern medicine has remedies!" but it would takes months of questioning to get anything out of her. Such things were just not discussed.
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Thank you for responding. Most of the time my condition is very manageable, a lot of the time I don't even notice it. Supposedly it gets worse over time, and there are a lot of other things it can cause, other than the hand tremors.
I first noticed my hands shaking when I was in 7th grade, and was diagnosed the same year after a series of tests. I am 31 now, and over the years I have had instances where certain types of labor, can really intensify the tremors to a point where, I have no choice other than take a 10-15 minute break, because my hands become almost impossible to use.
Yesterday I mowed and edged the front and back lawn, trimmed the rosebushes, pulled weeds, etc. After I was done I couldn't even drink a glass of water. This is definitely the worst they've ever been, and I am not even back to 100% over 24 hours later. I take medication for it (Inderal 40 mg twice a day) and took some about an hour before I started working. I had to take another 80 mg after I finished which eased the discomfort, but not as much as I would have liked.
I also have other symptoms from it such as mild problems with my speech, trouble articulating myself on some occasions, every once in a while I experience some type of tremor when I'm talking that causes my head to do like a tourette's syndrome type thing (hard to explain), sometimes in public like at a sporting event I won't be able to move my head back in forth in a fluid motion which is really very uncomfortable for several reasons, becoming withdrawn, trouble concentrating. Some cases it progresses slowly and other cases a lot faster. I feel like my symptoms have been progressing fast over the last few years or so, and I look at my brother his is progressing much much slower. I have a doctor appt. coming up at the end of August, I am definitely going to update her, but if there is anyone else out there who has this, or knows anything about it at all, any information would be helpful. I have heard that it can become disabling in some cases.
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essentrail tremors
