Shaking Hands: Causes and Treatments Explained -

Diagnosing essential tremor involves a review of your medical history, family history and symptoms and a physical examination.

There are no medical tests to diagnose essential tremor. Diagnosing it is often a matter of ruling out other conditions that could be causing symptoms. To do this, your health care provider may suggest the following tests.

Treatment
Some people with essential tremor don't require treatment if their symptoms are mild. But if your essential tremor is making it difficult to work or perform daily activities, discuss treatment options with your health care provider.

• Medicine - Beta blockers. Typically used to treat high blood pressure, beta blockers such as propranolol (Inderal LA, InnoPran XL, Hemangeol) help relieve tremors in some people.
• Anti-seizure medicines. Primidone (Mysoline) may be effective in people who don't respond to beta blockers. Other medicines that might be prescribed include gabapentin (Gralise, Neurontin, Horizant) and topiramate (Topamax, Qudexy XR, others).
• Tranquilizers. Health care providers may use benzodiazepines such as clonazepam (Klonopin) to treat people for whom tension or anxiety worsens tremors.
• OnabotulinumtoxinA (Botox) injections. Botox injections might be useful in treating some types of tremors, especially head and voice tremors.

Lifestyle and home remedies
To reduce or relieve tremors:

Avoid caffeine. Caffeine and other stimulants can increase tremors.
Use alcohol sparingly, if at all. Some people notice that their tremors improve slightly after they drink alcohol, but drinking isn't a good solution. Tremors tend to worsen once the effects of alcohol wear off.

Learn to relax. Stress and anxiety tend to make tremors worse. Being relaxed may improve tremors. You can't rid your life of all stress. But you can change how you react to stressful situations using a range of relaxation techniques, such as massage or meditation.

Make lifestyle changes. Use the hand less affected by tremor more often. Find ways to avoid writing with the hand affected by tremor, such as using online banking and debit cards instead of writing checks.