Nursing and Essential Tremors

[hiddencatRN, BSN, RN]

About half of my dad's side of the family has an essential tremor, and I'm one of the ones that has it. It gets worse with anxiety/nervousness, excitement, low blood sugar. Sometimes anchoring my hands on something helps control the shaking, sometimes not. Sometimes it acts up for no reason I can figure out (I tutor and once I was with a student and it was so bad she asked what was wrong and I was not feeling any strong emotion at all), but it's always there a bit. I've pretty much cut caffeine out of my life completely because even a little makes it worse.

I'm starting to be worried about being able to do fine motor skills in nursing school, and how much of a problem this will be. My doctor offered to put me on beta blockers, and one of my aunts is on beta blockers for the tremor and says it helps. I'm kinda nervous about the idea of taking beta blockers when I'm young and don't have heart problems. Looking at my family history, the tremors get worse with age, so it would likely be a long term thing if I decide to go that route.

Anyone else have experience with this? What did you do? How did it affect your experience in clinicals?

[sweetiepeas]

I personaly dont but my sister-in-law is an lpn and has tremors and she does great! She is very good sticking. Sometimes the patients get nervous but she is a great shot. I guess you'd be able to do the same. maybe timing out the stick between tremors?