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Oct. 17th, 2004 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI'm not sure I've entirely recovered from the cold I had in September. I'm still tending to tire out faster, and I've had several bouts of hand tremors. The hand tremors are a problem I've had for years, the reason I gave up on a couple of hobbies I used to enjoy. Sometimes, they go beyond tremors to actual spasms but only when I'm both exhausted and stressed. I've never had them in front of any health professional (unless you count my sister-in-law), so I've had a hard time getting my doctor to believe in them.
This time though, a thought occurred to me, and I had Scott pull out our digital video camera. He got about a minute of footage of me standing in the living room with my right hand flapping around uncontrollably. I'll show that to my doctor the next time I'm in. I suspect that there's really nothing to be done since it seems to tie in so heavily to exhaustion, but I want it documented. This stuff will matter if/when my disability comes up for review. And who knows? Maybe there'll be a treatment somewhere down the line.
I'm fairly sure that the tremors come from the time I spent taking prozac. While I was on it (Three years because my then doctor wouldn't give me painkillers if I stopped taking it and refused to refer me to a psychiatrist for medication review. He thought if he pushed the dosage high enough I'd get better and side effects be damned), I had muscle spasms in my legs, hands, neck, just about everywhere. It's a very creepy feeling to be sitting in a meeting and have one's head just suddenly *twitch* back on one's neck. The big reason I gained so much weight on prozac (more than 50 pounds) is that I had previously only had tremors from low blood sugar, so my instinctive response to shaking was to eat and to keep eating until the shaking stopped. Since the shaking never stopped... Well. I'm still fighting to get rid of that weight.
In day to day life, I've adjusted. I don't write longhand unless I've got a support under my forearm. I don't do anything with colored pencils anymore (I used to buy those elaborate coloring books and play around with shadings and mixing colors and... I do miss it, still. It's been more than a decade, but I do miss it). I don't use tools without forearm support and generally avoid using them at all. In fact, I avoid anything that requires manual dexterity or precision.
My mother had never seen the tremors before. I think she now understands why I don't do the things she considers such basic skills. I can handle painting a wall if there's room for sloppiness. Anything more precise is risky.
Well, I'm now proving again that there's a big stress component in the tremors, too. Since I've been writing about them, my right hand has started shaking. It's okay as long as I'm moving it and focusing on keeping it doing exactly what I want, but when I pause or reach for my juice...
This time though, a thought occurred to me, and I had Scott pull out our digital video camera. He got about a minute of footage of me standing in the living room with my right hand flapping around uncontrollably. I'll show that to my doctor the next time I'm in. I suspect that there's really nothing to be done since it seems to tie in so heavily to exhaustion, but I want it documented. This stuff will matter if/when my disability comes up for review. And who knows? Maybe there'll be a treatment somewhere down the line.
I'm fairly sure that the tremors come from the time I spent taking prozac. While I was on it (Three years because my then doctor wouldn't give me painkillers if I stopped taking it and refused to refer me to a psychiatrist for medication review. He thought if he pushed the dosage high enough I'd get better and side effects be damned), I had muscle spasms in my legs, hands, neck, just about everywhere. It's a very creepy feeling to be sitting in a meeting and have one's head just suddenly *twitch* back on one's neck. The big reason I gained so much weight on prozac (more than 50 pounds) is that I had previously only had tremors from low blood sugar, so my instinctive response to shaking was to eat and to keep eating until the shaking stopped. Since the shaking never stopped... Well. I'm still fighting to get rid of that weight.
In day to day life, I've adjusted. I don't write longhand unless I've got a support under my forearm. I don't do anything with colored pencils anymore (I used to buy those elaborate coloring books and play around with shadings and mixing colors and... I do miss it, still. It's been more than a decade, but I do miss it). I don't use tools without forearm support and generally avoid using them at all. In fact, I avoid anything that requires manual dexterity or precision.
My mother had never seen the tremors before. I think she now understands why I don't do the things she considers such basic skills. I can handle painting a wall if there's room for sloppiness. Anything more precise is risky.
Well, I'm now proving again that there's a big stress component in the tremors, too. Since I've been writing about them, my right hand has started shaking. It's okay as long as I'm moving it and focusing on keeping it doing exactly what I want, but when I pause or reach for my juice...
