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Date: 15 March, 2010

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HAND TREMORS IN A YOUNG MAN
Dr Sing Kong Yuen, BVMS (Glasgow), MRCVS
Date: 15 March, 2010

Hand tremors and shaking may or may not indicate an onset of Parkinson Disease. Read more about it. In the meantime, this is my hypothesis which may not be acceptable to you. But I can try to ask you to change your mindset and lifestyle.

Your lifestyle has had been highly stressful (studies and obsession with online gaming). Your nutrition has had been of poor quality (not much vegetables but lots of processed and junk food).

What has online gaming to do with your hand tremors? These is my analysis.

1. Poor sitting position. Repetitive wrist injury over the years due to keyboard punching non-stop for hours over midnight. Tendons get strained over the past 5 years of gaming.

2. Insufficient rest. Less than 8 hours of sleep per day. Sleep at 3 am. Wake up at 9 am to go to lectures. The brain has not much time to get into deep sleep and the brain cells have no deep sleep to purge much inputs, recover and repair.

3. The fear and flight hormones are produced at maximal levels as you fight the virtual demons to grab the virtual rewards and be "master of the universe" over the past years. These have adverse effects on the hormonal pathways involving your pituitary-hypothalamus-adrenal glands. There is just no respite for these organs. It is like a compulsive gambler. He just has to have his fix and starts to beg, scam and steal to get his dough for gambling.

4. At your age of around 20 years, your brain is still "developing". The brain nerves are constantly hammered by your relentless online-gaming instincts. Your eyes focus on bright spots on the computer screen for many hours, causing stress to the visual cortex.

5. As a result of cumulative stresses over at least 5 years, your brain centres involving co-ordination starts to slightly malfunction. Poor nutrition does not provide the necessary multivitamins for the brain. Insufficient rest and stressful undergraduate studies impair its ability to recuperate. The first sign now is just hand shaking and tremors. This is an early warning to you to scale back on your obsession and do something that does not involve repetitive stress to your hand tendons, brain and eyesight for hours.

6. There are similar nervous situations in some people whose eyelids keep blinking involuntary. This can be embarrassing if a woman you converse with thinks you are trying to be "funny" with her and taking liberties. In the latter situation, a lack of rest and insufficient sleep is said to be the cause. I did have such a situation once and it was not good for me when a lady client with her dog consulted me. Fortunately, these involuntary winks are no more after I ensure that I have sufficient rest.

7. In conclusion, you will most likely disregard my hypothesis as cock and bull since I don't have brain medical specialist qualifications. As a young man in your 20s, you feel "top of the world" and "invincible".

On the other hand, if you accept my hypothesis, here are my solutions.

Cease online gaming for 3 months. Let vegetables and fruits take up 50% of your food intake. Get a rice-cooker and cook your rice. Add fresh meat with no preservatives and eat 3 eggs a week. No more fatty chicken wings and fried meat. Just sleep early as you have to attend lectures. Your studies are stressful enough but you need to pass your exams. Much is at stake for your future. Many undergraduates have financial stress, personal health problems and family health stresses. You are fortunate in not having such burdens on your mind. Be wise and change your lifestyle. Practise yoga. Read about yoga and meditation.

Recently I met a bachelor of 62 years old who is comfortably off in his retirement as his CPF savings and annuities were sufficient. He was in perfect health as he had retired from the stresses of his own bookshop business for the past 3 years. He had free regular check ups and was certified healthy by his doctor friend. He saw me taking pictures of bougainvillea flowers at 9.30 am and spoke to me. He liked talking to strangers as he loved sales and marketing. And what does he do with his health? Smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky. His rationale was that the doctor friend had certified him healthy every year. So, he continued his lifestyle of smoking and drinking. "How about women?" I asked him. "I am not interested in them," he said. Otherwise, he would be leading a lifestyle of wine, women and song. I mean, wine, women and smoke.

There are such people who take good health for granted. They don't connect healthy living and nutrition with good health till they are older and need to pop at least 3 pills per day to control their high blood pressure and diabetes.

As for you, you decide. You can consult the specialist who may diagnose Parkinson Disease and prescribe you drugs. But in the end, what stresses you give your mind and body cannot be cured by the specialist's drugs.

You have to take 3 months off intensive multi-role online gaming for your brain to recover. But will you?

Give yourself 3 months of a new lifestyle. If there is no more hand tremor or shaking at the end of 3 months, you will be the happiest young adult in the world. If you continue with your lifestyle, you may not have a second chance as brain damage is hard to reverse.

With recovery of good health, the world is your oyster. Then you can go back to burn and slash all the online demons in the world. Till another hand tremor surfaces....

P.S
Listen to a song: Words Don't Come Easy

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