Tremor is one of the three 'key features' of Parkinson's disease, although it doesn't always happen. Some people who are dependent on alcohol go through frequent 'mini-withdrawal' within hours of their last drink, so they frequently have tremor. Alcohol can also damage your brain, including your cerebellum, which is responsible for your balance and for co-ordinating your movements. This tremor can persist, even weeks after you stop drinking. If you're dependent on alcohol, withdrawal can lead to severe symptoms including shaking, anxiety, confusion, sweating, palpitations and even seizures. Recreational drugsĪ variety of recreational drugs including MDMA and amfetamines can lead to tremor and other movement disorders, which may persist after you stop using them. Some antidepressants can also make you feel trembly, especially when you first start them. MedicationsĬulprits include too much salbutamol (used to relieve asthma symptoms) lithium carbonate (usually used in bipolar disorder) some epilepsy medicines and some cancer treatments. While it can be useful for keeping you alert, large quantities of caffeine in a short period can lead to tremor and palpitations. Like adrenaline, caffeine is a stimulant, which raises your level of alertness and stimulates your nerves. Other symptoms include sweating, feeling very hungry, irritability, poor concentration, feeling sick, blurred vision and palpitations. SU tablets stimulate your pancreas to produce more insulin, which can drop your blood sugar too low. Low blood sugarĮpisodes of low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycaemia, or 'hypos', are most common if you have diabetes treated with insulin, or type 2 diabetes treatment with sulfonylurea (SU) tablets. As well as the obvious feeling of being anxious, anxiety-related tremor is often accompanied by rapid heartbeat (palpitations), shortness of breath, dry mouth and sometimes chest pain. Both of these factors make you more likely to tremble. Adrenaline stimulates your nerve endings, raising your awareness, and increases the blood flow to the muscles in your arms and legs. This has profound effects on many parts of your body, mostly aimed at increasing your alertness, muscle strength and ability to run away from danger or turn to face it. It can make the simplest daily activities a challenge, and has a huge effect on their self-esteem.Īnxiety, like excitement, stimulates release of a hormone called adrenaline (epinephrine), the so-called 'fight or flight' hormone. But for many patients, uncontrollable shaking is anything but harmless. The medical term for it used to be 'benign essential tremor', on the basis that it wouldn't do you any harm, wouldn't lead to any other condition and didn't affect your life expectancy. The most common cause of significant, persistent tremor is essential tremor. Sometimes there is no obvious cause sometimes it's a magnification of your normal physiological tremor, brought on by a temporary stimulant such as caffeine or medication.Īmong the most common and important causes of tremor are the following: Essential tremor Tremor is a symptom, rather than a medical condition on its own. What affects your risk of getting tremor as a result of other conditions, such as those below, depends very much on what that condition is.
Conditions like essential tremor often run in families. Tremor symptoms severe enough to seek medical help are remarkably common - in fact, tremor is the most common movement disorder seen in specialist neurology clinics in hospital. Certain things can make a physiological tremor more noticeable, so you may only notice it now and then. It is often felt as a trembling or shaking sensation.Ī slight tremor is present in all people. This means that it is generally not controllable and happens without you deciding to move that body part.
Tremor comes about when these opposing muscle groups contract in turn. Many of the muscles of your body come in pairs, which 'oppose' each other in other words, contracting one muscle moves your body part in one direction, while contracting the opposing muscle moves it the opposite way.
What is a tremor?Ī tremor is a repetitive, rhythmical movement of a part of your body. It's important to remember that essential tremor, or other causes not related to a serious underlying medical problem, are by far the most likely explanation for tremor if you feel otherwise well. But if you have repeated or persistent episodes, there's a long list of possible causes. If you feel shaky as a one-off, it's likely that a temporary cause like fever, fear or stress is to blame.
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