Essential tremor is an involuntary shaking of some or all parts of the body, such as the head, hands, body, jaw, or voice, when one feels stressed or nervous.
One may feel embarrassed when their head, jaw, voice, or entire body trembles when writing letters in front of someone, pouring a drink at a party where the atmosphere is tense, getting their hair done in the mirror at the hair salon, taking a picture, speaking in front of a group of people, or looking at their mobile phone because their head, jaw, voice, or entire body trembles.
Hand tremor can make it difficult to do daily activities, such as eating, drinking, and writing. Moreover, some people may need to be helped around if their whole body is shaking, and others may not be able to eat properly or drool involuntarily because their jaw is shaking. Trembling voice can also ruin a valuable presentation.
People may have only one symptom, or a combination of symptoms that overlap with one another.
These tremors are similar to Parkinson’s, but they have different causes and symptoms. Parkinson’s is caused by damage to brain cells and is confirmed by MRI, etc. The difference between Parkinson’s and essential tremor can be identified to some extent by noting that Parkinson’s is worse when one is not nervous and actually lessens when one is nervous, whereas essential tremor is worse when one is nervous.
Of the different types of essential tremors, the focus here will be on head tremor. Other symptoms, such as the hands, voice, jaw, and whole body, may correspond to the head tremor.
Cause
Neurotransmitters that control the autonomic nervous system and the sympathetic–parasympathetic nervous system are a typical substance that causes neurological symptoms and are also involved in muscle tension and relaxation.
When one is under stress, the reason that they experience neurological symptoms, such as insomnia, anxiety, or a stiff neck, is because neurotransmitter abnormalities cause neurological symptoms and muscle tension.
Head tremor among essential tremor is a combination of neurological symptoms and tension in the back of the neck at the same time due to stress or tension, and involuntary head movements are made to relax the back of the neck muscles that have become stiff due to stress.
Therefore, people with tremor are often in stressful environments, have stress-prone personalities, or have neurotic symptoms. In terms of personalities, it is more common in exemplary students, sensitive people, self-sacrificing people, perfectionists, and meticulous people. People with these personality types are more prone to neurotic symptoms, such as sleep disturbances, heart palpitations, anxiety, nervousness, frustration, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, at the slightest hint of stress.
There is a higher chance for women and older people to have head tremor. It is because women are generally more delicate, self-sacrificing, and tender-hearted. In addition, hormonal changes after menopause make aids develop neurological symptoms. For the average woman, head tremor often starts around menopause.
While some people believe that head tremor is genetic, it is more reasonable to think of it as a personality trait that runs in families rather than a matter of DNA.
Treatment works by balancing the neurotransmitters, relieving neurological symptoms, and relaxing stiff muscles in the back of the neck caused by tension.
Problems with current treatments
- How to treat neurological symptoms
Current treatments for essential tremor include medications to treat stress-induced neurological symptoms, that is, neuroleptics that involve neurotransmitters.
Dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, and dozens of other neurotransmitters must maintain a mutual balance, or homeostasis. Long-term use of drugs such as dopamine, which is used to treat neurological symptoms, such as depression and insomnia, can lead to side effects, such as tolerance and the development of other neurological symptoms. This is because an increase in certain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, disrupts the homeostasis with other neurotransmitters, causing a domino effect of imbalances in other neurotransmitters.
In short, taking medication can have the side effects of making other neurological symptoms more severe or causing other neurotransmitters-related disorders.
- How to treat the muscles in the back of the neck
Some people get Botox to loosen up tight muscles, which may have some effect by temporarily relieving muscle tension, but it does nothing to stabilize the neurotransmitters that cause muscle tension. In other words, because the underlying cause, the neurotransmitter, has not been treated, Botox treatment may provide some relief only during the course of treatment, but the symptom may recur. Acupuncture, physical therapy, Chuna manual therapy, chiropractic, and other methods of releasing neck muscles are temporary treatments, just like Botox.
What are the methods to stabilize neurotransmitters with non-drug methods?
Yoga, meditation, exercise, massage, and deep breathing have been tried to avoid the problems with medications currently used to treat neurological symptoms. This is the desirable way to treat neurological symptoms without side effects by balancing neurotransmitters throughout the body. These methods treat the disease neither excessively nor inadequately. When treating insomnia, it will return the person to their normal pre-illness sleep, and when treating depression, it will return the person to their normal pre-illness personality rather than changing it.
In other words, neurotransmitters become more mutually balanced. However, its disadvantages include the need for a significant amount of effort, coupled with a relatively low effect, even though it is effective and there are no side effects.
Eastern and Western treatment points for neurological symptoms
- Trigger points in Western acupuncture
The muscle theory, or myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) or trigger point, formulated by Dr. Travell, who was President Kennedy’s personal physician, stated that when certain muscles in the body are tense, certain conditions occur in places that have no anatomical connection. This theory is known as Western acupuncture because of the application of acupuncture as part of the treatment, and it is now an accepted and proven theory that is used clinically by practitioners around the world.
According to MPS, when the muscles in the chest (such as pectoral muscle) are tense, neurological symptoms such as chest tightness, palpitations, anxiety, and arrhythmia occur. Tenderness occurs where the muscles in the chest are tense, and the neurological symptoms disappear as the tension also disappears.
- Treatment points for neurological symptoms in Eastern acupuncture
In Eastern or oriental medicine, acupuncture points on the chest are known to treat neurotic symptoms, such as insomnia, depression, panic, obsession, anxiety, nervousness, and nervous breakdowns. Acupuncture, moxibustion, and cupping on these points can help neurological symptoms disappear.
3. Synthesizing the two theories and applying them clinically has led to the identification of treatment points relevant to the treatment of neurological symptoms.
Regardless of whether it is Eastern acupuncture points or trigger points, pressing on the sternum, ribs, or muscles that make up the chest to find the painful area and eliminate the pain will eliminate the neurological symptoms.
The same approach to eliminating rib cage pain applies to almost all neurological conditions, including depression, panic, anxiety, and nervousness, as neurotransmitters are balanced mutually throughout the body to maintain homeostasis. Depending on the condition, some symptoms will heal quickly, and others will take longer, but they will disappear without side effects. In other words, they will recover to one’s pre-illness conditions.
How to locate pain
Press on the entire area, as shown in the Figure, to locate the painful spot. One can detect the painful area by pressing down. The fingers should be placed perpendicular to the pressed area, and after pressing down hard (about 4 kilograms or more of force) with fingers until the tip or fingerprint area of the pressing fingers reaches the muscle or bone, gently rub the muscle or bone in the area. Then the painful area can be located. Generally, almost everyone has pain in the area of the size of their palm, around the bone in the middle of their chest, the sternum. It is because no one is stress-free. If the pain could not be located, there might be a problem with the way one is pressing, so one should look carefully. A wide range of pain indicates a severe neurological symptom, while a narrow range indicates a mild neurological symptom.
Eliminating this tenderness will eliminate the neurological symptoms. In the case of essential tremor, patients generally seek treatment after neurological symptoms are substantially advanced or get worse, so almost the entirety of the marked area is often included in the scope of treatment.
How to treat pain
The most common way to get rid of pain is to use painkillers, especially steroids. Once called miracle drugs, steroids have serious side effects. Its long-term use can lead to side effects, such as Cushing’s syndrome and imbalances with other neurotransmitters, and as a result, it is legally regulated to be prescribed only by specialists.
The best treatment method to get rid of pain is to release endorphins from one’s own body, which have analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties that are much stronger than those of steroids. It has no side effects, making it the most desirable natural remedy.
Endorphins, a type of neurotransmitter, are released by stimulating sensory nerves.
Sensory nerve stimulation is very tricky.
Sensory nerves’ characteristics are that they do not respond to large stimuli but only to stimuli that are weak enough to be imperceptible.
The body has motor and sensory nerves, and strong stimuli stimulate motor nerves but not sensory nerves. Conversely, a weak stimulus can stimulate the sensory nerves but not the motor nerves. This is known as the Gate Control theory, meaning that the opening of one door causes the closing of the other.
As such, there is a difficult challenge of making stimuli, which are weak enough to not stimulate motor nerves, reach sensory nerves that are deep inside.
Current physical therapy devices used to stimulate sensory nerves, such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, microcurrent, and laser, use only one type of mechanically fixed intensity or wavelength. It is difficult to accurately reach the sensory nerves that exist at different depths depending on the cause, symptoms, and constitution of each patient, and even if it is successful, the stimulus is not weak enough to stimulate the sensory nerves, thus the treatment effect is very inadequate.
This is why the effectiveness of physical therapy devices developed so far has been unsatisfactory.
Based on his long clinical experience, Dr. Hwa-soo Hwang, director of Chims Saengbit Korean Medicine Clinic (or Chims Clinic), developed Chims Band 1, which is a silver-attached tape to reflect the light generating from the body.
At the site of inflammation, or the pain spot, active oxygen is generated, and where active oxygen is present, a weak light (biophoton) of 1/1000th of a firefly is produced.
When these weak biophotons are retro-reflected, the waves that are used for treatment and the waves that are generated in the painful area cause mutual resonance on the same wavelength, which can effectively stimulate the deep sensory nerves to produce endorphins.
In short, a mild stimulus can reach deep into the sensory nerves.
This is the same principle that far-infrared radiation from the outside, which can only penetrate 2–4 mm below the skin, resonates with the far-infrared radiation inside the body and warms up to 4–10 cm subcutaneously.
Resonance photos
This treatment method has been selected as an excellent clinical technology by the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine (KIOM), and its efficacy was confirmed in the “Investigator’s Clinical Trial on the Analgesic Effect of Chims Band on Shoulder Pain After Endoscopic Surgery” at Dongshin University Korean Medicine Hospital, sponsored by KIOM and supervised by the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
Chims therapy, which stimulates the sensory nerves, can be used for many conditions other than pain. Clinical case studies have been published in SCI-level journals and at various academic conferences for the treatment of various conditions, such as rhinitis, irritable bowel disease, panic disorder, insomnia, depression, menstrual cramps, dry mouth, morning sickness, asthma, arthritis, and body hallucinations (the sensation of feeling cold, hot, or crawling bugs in part or all of the body), by combining Eastern acupuncture points, trigger points, and tender points.
For a long time, wearing precious metals such as gold, silver and diamonds has been a way to use the light generated from the body for healing.
Treating head tremor with Chims therapy
1. Treating neurological symptoms, the first cause of head tremor
By attaching the Chims Band that has enhanced the function of Chims Band 1 to tenderness points in the rib cage, the pain disappears along with the neurological symptoms. This means that neurotransmitters are mutually balanced with each other.
Its characteristic is that when the pain disappears, i.e., when it returns to normal, the light generated from the body also disappears, and the treatment is no longer effective. In other words, the personality does not change, but the treatment naturally stops when the person returns to their pre-disease condition. For example, when treating insomnia, the treatment will stop working on its own once one returns to a deep, restful sleep state, rather than just sleeping more. Other neurological symptoms are also restored to their pre-disease condition, and the resistance to stress is also improved, which serves to prevent stress-induced symptoms.
2. Treating neck muscles, the second cause of head tremor
People with head tremor generally suffer from neck and shoulder pain. In other words, the neck and shoulder muscles where a lot of autonomic nerves are distributed are often tense and not relaxed easily due to abnormalities of neurotransmitters. By pressing the neck muscles and applying the Chims Band to the sore spot, the sensory nerves are stimulated and pain disappears on the same principle, and the neck muscles are relaxed and head tremor disappears.
In other words, by eliminating the chest pain, neurotransmitters are stabilized, neurological symptoms disappear, and tension and relaxation in the neck muscles return to normal, which in turn eliminates the tremor. In addition, it improves resistance to stress, which helps prevent neurological symptoms and head tremor when one becomes stressed or nervous.
3. Other treatment tools
For an average person who is not a medical professional, it can be difficult to locate the pain in the chest and apply a Chims Band.
Stress is also often exacerbated by external circumstances. This means that the scope of treatment can be broadened or narrowed. In this case, it may be hard to find a proper place to stick the band. In addition, if the skin is too fragile or hairy, it may be difficult to apply, and long-term treatment may be unaffordable. With this in mind, the Chims sleeveless shirt, which you can just wear without sticking it on, has been developed. It works the same way as the Chims Band: you can just wear a piece of clothing that has an active ingredient attached to it. The effects last for about 3–4 years and the shirts are washable. To treat the back of the neck, one can use a Chims neck support for the back side or scarf.
Muscles are also closely related to the nutritional status. Good nutrition (meals, iron, vitamins, etc.) and avoiding stressful environments are helpful. Also, stretching your chest muscles and applying warm compresses can be helpful.
- In the case of hand tremors, it is important to treat the chest, and hand muscle treatment, that is, the Chims elbow wear is recommended as supplement. (If one has tremors after strenuous labor, that is, excessive force on their hands, do not treat the chest, but use the elbow wear or apply the Chims Band to the area where the elbow wear is in contact with the skin.)
- In the case of jaw tremor, it is important to treat your chest and use the Chims jaw mask (or apply a Chims Band to the area where the Chims jaw mask touches your skin).
- In the case of body tremor, chest treatment is important, and you can use a Chims scarf or Chims neck support for the back side (you can attach a Chims Band to the area where the neck support touches your skin).
- In the case of voice tremor, you can use a Chims scarf in addition to the chest treatment (apply the Chims scarf to the area where the Chims scarf is touching your skin).
- Withdrawal symptoms may occur during treatment. The tremor may become more severe, or other symptoms that have been latent may suddenly appear.
For more information and to purchase: www.chimsclinic.kr