Gunhand trembles...anybody else?

[Button]

My gunhand (right) has started to shake pretty good when there is something in it, like a can of diet pepsi... or a loaded .45 Colt. I shoot duelist style mostly, but it's getting hard to aim sometimes. It seems to come & go. Stress & exitement of shooting seems to aggravate it. Anybody else experiencing this? I'm a 50ish male & been CAS for 15 yrs. I saw a doc & he wouldn't hazard a guess as to the cause. Definetely not the onset of Parkinsons, though. Best I've been able to discern is that it is something called an Essential Tremor. Make your own jokes about the affliction's name, lol.
    Keep 5 beans in yer wheel,
    Button

[Lumpy Grits]

Go see another Doc!
You have a issue of some sorts going on!
LG

[Cumberland Mtn John]

Botton,
Like you my hand started trembling in my fifties and has gotten so bad I have to shoot two-handed.  I then went to a neurologist and had a test preformed and judged to have Essential Tremors.  There are several drugs that stop or slow down the tremors. So not all is lost.  I've done quite well shooting two-handed.
Cumberland Mtn John

[Allie Mo]

Hi Button,

Ditto on the tremble starting in my 50s. It is on my off hand. I went to a neurologist. He called mine a benign tremor.

The solution is simple, use a two handed grip.

Regards,

Allie Mo

PS Propranolol can help some.

[Button]

Thank-you, my gal-pal Allie Mo & all the others. I saw a neuroticist (wonderfully strange little duck) & she diagnosed an Essential Tremor (strange name, no?) and gave me Propranolol, also known as Inderal. Classical musicians use it. It kinda jerks my guts around, but there is a balance to be found between the drug, reduced tremble & sudden trips to the outhouse, lol.
I personally am not ready to go back to two-handed shooting, as it lacks panache! 
Why is there no Classic Cowboy for black powder? Woulda thought it'd be one of the FIRST categories.
This is us: www.ovmcowboys.ca
Cheerio...
Button

[Allie Mo]

Hi again Button,

Never ever take Propranolol on an empty stomach. I learned this the hard way. The pain was so bad, I had to go home from work.

Regards,

Allie Mo

[Button]

That's what I was doing. Now I take it after I eat. Works fine.

[High Sierra]

I have had this proplem on my right hand since my middle 50s. It comes and goes. I used to think it was because I spend long hours in front of a computer for work but now I know I'm not alone with this problem. At least now I also know what it is.

HS

[BadWind]

problem might be that diet pepsi

[Octagonal Barrel]

I'm over 50 and just starting in CAS shooting.  My hands are certainly not as steady as once they were, nor are my eyes so good that I see so easily at 25 yards.  I've hardly the experience and skill to comment, but...

I saw an article by Massad Ayoob on "trigger control."  In it, he suggested that everyone's hand wavers some in holding a handgun.  His concern was that in combat handgunning, you should use a very strong grip, and that strong grip often interferes with holding the gun as steady as possible (a little different from age-induced wavering).  He recommended you accept wavering, and use trigger control to achieve accuracy instead.  He suggested that accuracy is based not on holding the sights dead on target, but knowing when to (and how to) pull the trigger.  Ship's gunners on tall masted warships used guns that waved up and down considerably more than my own hands do, and are said to have waited to fire till they were on the "uproll" to achieve a hit.  I think Ayoob was suggesting we apply the same thinking to our shooting to overcome the wavering of our sights in handgunning.

I get that there's probably a difference in the degree to which Mr. Ayoob's hand wavers and what I experience, and maybe my shaking is less predictable than rolling of ocean waves.  But I'm still encouraged to think that hand wavering seems only to be part of the equation that results in accuracy.  Perhaps at least part of learning to compensate for the problem of age-induced wavering could be greater emphasis on trigger control?  If your trigger control is already top notch and my comment is out of place, I hope you will forgive me.  But for myself, I continue to think of Ayoob's advice as encouragement that I can improve as I practice (and waver) at the range.  My groups may not be world class, but at least I can still connect with iron cowboys.

Here's to being over 50, and continuing to spit those 5 beans back out of the wheel near to the place you meant them to be spat at...

[Slim High]

OB: If your hand shakes when you are holding something but is still when at rest it is likely Essential Tremor. Not to be confused with Parkinsons where your hand shakes at rest.

[Painted Filly]

I have that too and I was put on primadone. Works great! I shoot gunfighter.

Painted Filly

[MarshalMiller]

Well, I'm not over 50 yet, but I do have a tremor.  I've had it all my life and the Doc calls it a hereditary tremor.  My Mom has it, My Grandmother...

He told me long ago that I could take drugs to fix it, but the side effects of those drugs are worse that learning to deal with my tremor in it's current form, so unless it gets worse, he won't prescribe them.

What I have learned to do to deal with it in shooting, works with both my old SAAs as well as modern semi-autos, is don't try to hold a steady aim.  The harder I try, the more the tremor flairs up.  Instead I try to do a small figure 8 with the front sight.  This allows for a predictable pattern, and I fire when coming to the center of the 8.  So similar to what Octagonal Barrel said, use trigger control and timing to overcome the tremor.

[Stu Kettle]

Even you don't have a tremor or any kind of medical condition. It's dang near impossible to hold a firearm perfectly still unless its on a very solid rest. For offhand shooting, the trick is to break the shot when the sites are on the target.  It's all about the trigger control.

[rickk]

I dumped coffee and soda a couple months ago in an effort to loose weight.

I also replaced my normal cholesterol-laden morning and lunch food with fruit (apples/bananas/oranges).

Prior to that there were times, usually late morning, where sometimes I got a little jittery.

That all jitteriness went away a week or so after I ditched caffeine and started filling up on fruit most of the day.

I am also down 12 pounds in two months as well.