thumb shaking
 

So I was watching a little TV last night when I noticed that my thumb was shaking involuntarily when put into a specific position on the remote control.

Imagine the position like this. Hold your hand in the thumbs up position, with folded fingers towards your chest. Now, bend your thumb to a 90 degree angle. In this position, my right thumb shakes up and down. It's not severe, but it's there.

Now, I want to make a hypothesis about this. On my computer, I hold my mouse with my right hand and often find that I put my thumb at that angle on the left side of the mouse.

This is particularly worrying me because while I do spend a significant amount of time in front of a computer for school / work / entertainment, I'm 20 years old and extremely active - that is, weight lifting 3x a week and full court basketball at least 2x a week. I feel like those activities should be keeping my fingers strong.

Any ideas on what this could be? Hopefully it's not an early sign of carpal tunnel syndrome - I've done everything I can to avoid it in being active, taking multivitamins, etc.

Also, any suggestions on what to do? Seek medical help right away? Calcium supplements?

Mine does it too sometimes. I've noticed it happens more often when I'm tired or tense. I don't think it's an indication of anything severe. And for the record it's done it for more than 10 years and I still don't have carpal tunnel, so I doubt you're in danger of that either.

Mine do that sometimes. Doubt it has anything to do with carpal tunnel.

BTW, I've been keyboarding for 40 years -- counting piano lessons -- and don't have carpal tunnel. If you want to avoid carpal tunnel, the best thing to do is to hold your wrists high above the keyboard, higher than your fingertips. That's what the experts say -- and also Mrs. Baillaishe, my old piano teacher, who beat the wrists-high position into me before I ever saw a typewriter keyboard. People tell me that when I type, I look like I'm playing a piano!

i get jittery hand/fingers when i havent had any sleep and when im extremely tired.. whats your sleeping pattern like?

Actually I don't think it'll be carpal tunnel syndrome. CTS symptoms involve having numbiness, burning, tingling or difficulity to get a grip or make a fist.

I should know because I had a hard time trying to get my hand to do anything when I came down with it but thankfully, it went away all by itself.

I think I have an idea of what you're going through, are you pressing the remote button in certain position? When I say certain position of your thumb, I meant at a certain angle. Are you pressing the button with your thumbs straight, bend a little bit, or straight up with your thumb rotated? Try different posture and see what happens. When I tried that myself, I find that my thumb kinda shakes a little bit when pressing the buttons at a angle, not straight but that sounds nothing compared to what you're going through.

Then again, that's just pure speculation

It's pretty eclectic - might do work until 3 in the morning, get up at 9, nap during the day. You know, the college sleeping pattern :crazy:

The posture that I notice it in is when the thumb is bent at a 90 degree angle on the joint closest to the nail & the rest of my fingers are tight (as in giving thumbs up or holding a remote control)

In other postures, such as a relaxed position, there is no noticeable shaking. Also, I can bend my thumb every which way when I'm not tight fisted and there is no shaking. Also to note, there is no restriction of movement.

If the situation worsened, I'd seek an orthopedic?

Check out this thread. From what I remember, it sounds like kind of the same thing.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ight=foot+pain
There is no real cure for this as far as I know. Shaky hands I think is fairly common

try wearing an armbrace that immobilizes your wrist for a few days. that usually solves the problem.

You have a nervous tic. Congratulations. Nothing's wrong with you, you're not going to die, your thumb will not fall off and you will not lose the use of your hand. It will come up once in a while, you will mostly ignore, occasionally it'll annoy you and you'll cope.

I have several, the most noticable being a leg spasm that I get from time to time. Slightly irritating, but hardly life-threatening.

Sometimes body parts jsut do this. Maybe something is pinching something *shrugs*. If i put my leg in a certain position it will start to do that too (that bouncy leg thing). If i take it out of that strange position it will stop.

So like the doctor in the joke once said "..so don't do that".