Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin

I am feeling old. When I am trying to make a point (vocally), often times my chin will tremble and my teeth chatter as if I were in the initial stages of hypothermia. Naturally, it can be embarrassing. Combined with my word finding problems, this chin dance makes discourse even harder. It doesn't happen all the time, just when I am attempting to be socratic. It is very annoying.

I think both of parents, my dad in his 80's, my mother in her 90's, had some form of chin shaking and tremors in their hands. Maybe it was parkinson's but I doubt it. If anything, they might have had essential tremor.

Essential tremor is the most common form of tremor. It can affect the hands, arms, head, and voice. It mimics parkinson's in that it doesn't affect life expectancy, and can affect fine motor skills and ability to swallow. It is often misdiagnosed as parkinson's.

Here are some differences/similarities between the two conditions.

• parkinson's is a resting tremor. Essential tremor appears when there is purposeful movement. My parent's trembled when, for example, they lifted a glass to their mouth. The tremor did not appear when their hand was at rest.
• You have seen the head nodders. Head nodding is associated with ET and not with PD. Usually only the chin is affected in PD, not the entire head.
• In ET, the tremor is more likely to be apparent on both sides of the body early in its onset; while in PD, it usually starts on one side and progresses over time to include both sides.
• The tremor of ET is faster than that of PD.
• PD includes several symptoms that we know so well. ET has only one symptom - tremor.

There are other differences/similarities but who wants to dwell on them!

When first diagnosed, my doctor asked if either of my parents had tremors. I replied, "You know, only the kind that really old people get." He looked at me askance, with a droll little smile. He said nothing, but I knew I had said something silly.

Apparently people don't shake just because they have got old. There has to be a reason for their condition, usually PD or ET.

Who knew? I thought all old people got the shakes; after all, that had been my experience.

I just thought about something. I had better conclude this entry. I don't want to upset my siblings who I know read this new age missal. They don't know my diagnosis about our parents' problem. Now they know. Relax siblings; less than 7% (if that) of PWP seem to be the victims of heredity. It is not all in your genes. You probably just did not run through the mosquito killing DDT clouds as often as I did.

I have run out of things to say except, avoid clouds of DDT.