Resting Tremor - Parkinson's? Please Help! :) - Parkinson's Disease Message Board

pocanii · 11-15-2001, 05:16 AM

Hi, all. I have a resting tremor in a finger on my left hand (one side only, definitely a "resting tremor" after my exhaustive research!). Needless to say, I am now concerned about young onset Parkinson's, although I currently do not exhibit any other symptoms. It is my understanding that this is often the first symptom, however. I know, too, that hyperthyroidism, brain tumour, Shy Drager, etc. can also exhibit this symptom, although I have no other indications of those conditions either.

My question is on the occurence rate of resting tremor. I have "had" it for 2-3 months now. For awhile, it was almost "regular" in that it happened several times a week, always when propped up in bed watching TV with my hands on my lap in the middle of the night. Yes, activity makes it ultimately stop. And yes, I may have been a little stressed during this period of time, though nothing drastic. However, the last three weeks, it is not "as regular" (and I am less stressed) but has popped up three times: in public for the first time when I was at a beach relaxing in a chair, hands in lap once again. The other two times were in the morning. Once it actually started in the last two minutes of my dream and I woke up to realize it was no dream and the other time was about a minute after waking up. Everything I had read thus far indicated resting tremors (perhaps tremors in general) disappear during sleep, however I found this cryptic passage on the net regarding, "Effects of Sleep on PD": Motor abnormalities during sleep include....persistence of tremor in the lighter stages of sleep, or its re-emergence in the transition between sleep and wakefulness and on awakenings."

Should I be concerned? Could one have a rest tremor for simply no reason at all? In the beginning stages of PD, does anyone know the frequency of a tremor? (NOT the mhz, but how regularly/irregularly it might occur)?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks greatly in advance!!

P.S. I do know of other causes of tremor, i.e. caffeeine issues, alcohol withdrawal, drug toxicity, etc - none of these apply to me.

Bruce · 11-15-2001, 08:10 AM

I have had parkinsons for twelve years and am not a doctor.The best advice I could give you is make an appointment with a movement disorder specialist,because their seems to be a myth out there that parkinsons is a disease found only in old people and people like yout self are frequently misdiagnosed.10 per cent of parkinsons is found in younger people.

I am not implying you have parkinsons, but frequently people have a wide range of symptoms that they may not be aware of.

We have MSD doctor on this forum and he would be more qualified to answer your questions than I.

Bruce

pocanii · 11-15-2001, 12:45 PM

Thank you so much for the reply. Yes, I gathered early on to not exclude myself as a PD candidate because of my age (31).

I am not in the US presently and have no insurance, etc. in the country where I am (Greece) - or in the US - so I am having to approach this rather cautiously. Don't necessarily want the diagnosis if it is PD until I am covered, as you can imagine. And most of the policies I am now reviewing don't even cover "palliative conditions." Right now I will simply try to get an MRI to rule out other possiblities and a simple test for hyperthyroidism and hope that transatlantic sharing of medical records can be avoided

I did at least look into the cost of meds, if there ends up beign a need, and I'm hearing estimates of $150-$200 a month. Taking into account that one's dosages/drug use will vary, does that sound about right to you? If so, it is not as God-awful as I might have anticipated. $0 would always be better, of course :0)

In any event,thanks again for the reply. After 12 years, I see you're still active on the net. My craft is web design so that's promising - ha!ha! Regardless of my personal outcome, I wish you the absolute best!!!

Bruce · 11-15-2001, 04:31 PM

I hope I don't ruin your day,but eventually you end up tsking a lot of different drugs and higher doses of those drugs if you have Parkinson. I buy generics, if I can get them, and a few days ago the drugstore substituted the brand Parlodel for the generic and that one prescription cost me $435, about a hundred dollars higher than the generic. I once calculated my annual cost for prescription drugs and it was about $16,000.

My neurologist, soon to be ex neuro, started experim enting on me ant told me I had to switch from Parlodel to Requip, because the Requip was a "newer" drug, I tried taking some samples he gave me and then he wrote up a prescription. It cost me over $200 and then I figured out the Requip was causing side effects and I am now stuck with a full prescription that I couldn't take. His nurse called me and told me I had to immediately switch to Mirapex. Her first mistake was to tell me to make an abrupt switch, because you are supposed start wirh a lower dose and gradually work up to the desired dose to help prevent side effects. I refused to buy a Mirapex prescription for the same reasons.

I found a reference on the NPF website [url="http://www.parkinson.org"]www.parkinson.org[/url] that said their have never been any clinical trials proving that any drug in this class is better than any other drug in this class (agonists). I sent itto my neurologist.

I think you "pulled my chain."

Bruce

pocanii · 11-15-2001, 11:42 PM

Ouch! Slight ruining of my day, yes

) No worries, though. Not at my regular PC right now but later will send you the URL of the study I saw on PD drug costs. Obviously it was w-a-y off!

Anyway, I will try to find a movement disorder specialist here where I am (and I've since read you guys' thread on why you all recommend one over a neurologist - very helpful stuff indeed!), but in the meantime will hope that the one who frequents this message board is kind enough to answer my question about the frequency of the tremors. I'd love to especially know about hyperthyrpoidism, in case I'm lucky enough to have that instead. Not too much is written about resting tremors and hyperthyroidism, though, but there are a couple of references to it. I guess I'm curious if the resting tremor presented in early Parkinson's is very similar in nature/characteristic to that presented in hyperthyroidism or if there might be distinct differences that will allow me to rule out one or the other.

Thanks again for your wealth of knowledge and taking the time to reply! Though I'm already in acceptance mode if it comes to pass that this is what I have, it is still a bit of an anxious period for me not knowing so this is a nice forum to have found :-)