Hi there..this is my second post so hopefully its in the right place. here's the background...my tremor started in my right hand 8 yrs ago. id lost my father suddenly less than a year before so at the time the doc said it was likely post traumatic stress disorder. if it lingered, it was highly probable that it was earlg onset of parkinsons or m.s.

fast forward to last summer. i had a significant increase in tremors. over the years they'd spread to both hands, my right hand still dominant but this summer..it was impossible to hide. strangers literally accusing me of being on drugs etc. i had a seizure one night (that had never happened before) ill have random times where suddenly i can't speak, i start to drool and slowly collapse. my daughter is 3 now but there were times as a baby, id be struggling to stay awake and hold myself up to fill a bottle, pouring milk all over the floor just in time to lay down because i physically couldn't stay awake. last summer, i gave myself a black eye while pulling my hair into a ponytail and my middle finger spasmed and flicked me incredibly hard. examples; cooking dinner and my arm would spasm and id throw the spoon and it'd hit the ceiling, or be holding the frying pan and throw icrosz the room. i sat down with two friends and told them something was seriously wrong with me. i was bumping into walls as i walked, stumbling as though i was intoxicated etc.

i haven't had health insurance since 2009. This is already very long. so ill make it quick-i ended up in the e.r. once in march and again in april for blood pressure. i was diagnosed with raynauds disease and orthostatic hypertension. My blood pressure was consistently 180/135 for two days and then spiked to 263/148 but it was due to the severitt of pain in my sciatica and at thiis point, my medicaid had kicked in.

my doc ran all kinds of blood work to rule out anything else it could be. i had a lumbar and a brain mri. no m.s. i learned my great aunt on my moms side has parkinsons but i knew NOTHING from bio. father side. he didn't raise me. the man that did raise me..his family pulled some strings to get me into a relatives neurologist who had known my dad.(that raised me) . I was so thankful. it was nearly 2 months earlier than the other neurologist. then i had a nightmare that i was screaming at thiis doc that he misdiagnosed me. anyways, i saw him..he gave me a 2000 mg iv treatment of solu-medrol and said he 'just wanted to see what it would do' the last on the list of things he said was it may help my back so that i could stand up without excruciating pain but that wasn't the focus. he diagnosed me with Essential Tremor. he said 'we are leaving it at that as your basic diagnosis/no question you have it ' for now and ill see you in 3 wks. i desperately need your bio fathers family history.

long story short, located an elderly relative id never met who is a first cousin on fb. told her nothing other than i needed family medical history because id been diagnosed with a few things..she said 'can i guess before u tell me? Is it Parkinson s?' On bio fathers side-grandpa, uncle and his son..and then this woman i spoke with, her daughtee all have parkinsons. so i have it on both sides. which in the past five years they've realized parkinsons is far more genetic than they realized and there's an environment al trigger but thw trigger is unknown.

so at my neuro appt this wk, he told me that i have 10-15 of fhe 17 components. that make up Parkinson s. i made it clear that i was trying to learn and understand . id contacted the Essential Tremor Foundation and showed him ths chart with parkinsons vs E.T and NOT ONE of the qualifications am i essential. tremor. so, he put me on propanlol which ironically my daughter had been on jfor a year for something else..but I'm frustrated. everything I've researched has said that when someone with a situation like mine who didn't react to a steroid, the neurologist typically prescribes levodopa since it will ONLY help tremors if you have parkinsons. he told me that ill be lucky if theygo away even 40%. i understand the lack of treatment for E.T. but when i can go thru a chart that the E.T. foundation sent me and SHOW him..andgive that medical history..wouldn't levodopa be a more efficient way to know for sure than 'trying this and see you in a month' when he said himself he 'isn't sure its not Parkinson s at this point'?? The problem is that its medicaid so a 'second opinion isn't an option but I'm hoping someone reads this and has some ideas for me. i know this is long and i really appreciate you taking fhe time to read it all!! I'm a single mom of two amazing kids, physically. unable to work right now and 8 years of. people queationing me, calling child protective services or askinv. close frie.nds of mine 'what I'm on' and 8 yeats, yeat

Welcome to NeuroTalk:

I have to wonder after reading your post, if you had testing for B12 levels, and know your result.

Many people today have this hidden factor, which can lead to all sorts of neurological symptoms, often before anemia develops.

Here is a video that explains it for patients. One of the highlighted patients has tremors as her predominant symptom:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvEiz...ature=youtu.be

Low B12 can be treated orally today, for pennies a day over the counter. If doctors test for this, they often rely on OLD LAB RANGES which go down into low values and people then are misdiagnosed. The new acceptable low is now 400pg/ml (but the range goes down to 200 still and that is terrible!).

Here is a thread with more detail about B12...
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread85103.html

One reason this may happen also is that there is a genetic error in methylating B12 to its ACTIVE form in the body... called methylcobalamin (this is the form to use to supplement).
The error is in the DNA and there is a test for it MTHFR, that a doctor can order, or you can get at the 23andme website.
This error happens in 10-30% of Americans. It runs in families, therefore.
https://www.23andme.com/

Anyone with neurological symptoms should have a proper evaluation for B12, with the accurate interpretation of the test results. There are two other tests, that will provide information as to whether B12 in the diet is actually working... they are called MMA test and homocysteine test. Both of these tests will be elevated if B12 is in a form that is not active in the body.

So please watch the video... then visit my post which then goes into more detail. This should be ruled out, before you accept any other diagnosis.

B12 was one of the first things they checked, then thyroid, adrenal glands, lupus, i had two different sets of bloodwork done at the hospital and then my primary doc did a test for 'things id probably never even heard of' just so we could be sure we ruled them out. thank you for fhe idea and info though!!!