Head shaking (Page 1)

Icameron, I am having the same problem too, I started to notice it several months ago, but I seems that my head sometimes shakes and I don't realize it til somebody ask me why I was shaking my head.
Hope you get an answer soon.

Head shaking





okay, well.... I decreased my Effexor and my head shakes less. Long-term side effects of Effexor - tremors. My sister (not on effexor) asked her doctor why her head was shaking, doc told her..... is due to the fact that the coating on one of her medications has Acetaminophen in it. Most meds that are coated do. Hope this helps

Have you mentioned this tremor to your doctor? I would consult with a neurologist about this. Be sure to mention all your medications and dosages of the medications.

lcameron, funny (sort of) but I suffer from all your exact conditions. I once thought that the head shaking was related to the cymbalta, but went off and still having the tremors. But, I also have neurological probs, such as peripheral neuropathy. Best wishes.

Hello. I'm there for you, dude

i have the exact same problem. youre not alone. mine has been happening for about 4 years now. im a little younger than you, 25. im very curious as to what is causing it.

This or something similar started happening to me when I was 19. I had just had lyme disease and I''d heard that lyme disease can effect your nervous system so I thought maybe it was somehow related. But it continues to happen to me at least once every few days and is kind of disconcerting. I actually think for me it is anxiety related because it almost always happens when I''m on a crowded subway which makes me anxious... I feel claustrophobic and feel nervous that people are looking at me and then my head twitches quickly and sharply to the side and down. I try to breathe deeply and think about something else to prevent it... which doesn''t really work(!) I also sometimes feel what seems like a small electric shock in the back of my neck- this started the same time the head twitch started. I hope you''re able to find some advice and help soon.

I also noticed the head shaking along with the electric shock near my left ear and shooting up the side of my head. The doc gave me a shot which stopped the head pain, but the head slightly shaking is still there. Did you go to a neurologist or have an mri?

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Thanks for your patience!

thymeandtide. wow. we have the same exact anxiety condition and it's really good to know i'm not alone. thank you. i have abused many drugs in the past particularly ecstacy and cocaine which i'm sure has effected my brain but i'm not sure what the exact cause is. lately though i've been working out and keeping my body in shape which def helps cuz i think our issue may be related to the lack of endorphins and other chemicals in the brain. exercise pumps the brain with endorphins. and i take lamictal it's a mood stabilizer and that certainly helps. thanks man. great hearing that.

Hi I just googled this for some advice I've been having tremors where my head will shake in a no no action hasn't been this bad before started when I was 19. I could go weeks or months with out an occurance but recently nearly everyday I'm 32 now. I had a scan few yrs ago and nothing abnormal was reported but I think they were just ruling out Parkinson's. I'm booked for another scan soon but I'm not hopeful for a cure. I've been taking propranolol for my tremors but it does hardly anything. When I'm tired or stressed it can flair up again sometimes it's quite fast and when it dies down I have a neck ache. I worried that maybe some damaged was caused when I was younger and took ecstasy cocain and smoked cannabis. But I haven't touched any of those for over 10 years. I know if I drink alcohol it will stop it though but I don't want to be dependant on that. I read about some of you experiencing electric shock I gave had similar experience but not when shaking I remeber laying in bed and having it on only a couple occasions but was very weird was like I could also hear it and went up neck and into back of head bit frightening actually thinking back on it. Both times was when been taking ecstasy days before. I am glad I'm not the only one that has the same problem with head shaking. I get very down about it and embarrassed about it I just want it to stop.

thymeandtide, its funny you mention small electric shock in the back of your neck. I have essential tremor in my head and it started a day after a painful shock in the back of my neck. I couldnt turn my head for days. When it went away, I had ET. It also had really bad chicken pox at 18. I wonder if anyone else with ET had late chicken pox

I am 16 and I have the same symptom, I have an anxiety disorder, but I have had this since I was 13, I have never really though of it as a symptom until some people were talking about it. I sort of just ignored it. I have not taken any medication, so I want to know the answer to this

Mines Differant, I have had twitching of the head and ahakes more and more of my head, plus my head goes to the left and almost gets stuck there and I have to use my hand to bring my head straight. I have had 2 neck surgeys one fusion at C 5-6 one laser at C 6-7. Dec 06 and March 08. I Also have alot of Pain!

I am also experiencing head nodding and am not usually aware of it unless someone mentions it to me. I am really scared about what this could be. I also have an anxiety and panic disorder that I take medication for. The head nodding is now more frequent, and my husband says he noticed it first about a year ago. I have not seen a doctor as of yet for a diagnosis, but have an appointment in September. I am so scared about what this is and hope and pray that it does not worsen.

@ lcameron...
I am 29 now and suffer from the same symptoms exactly like you and my neuro doc said that i suffer from 'Titubation no-no' and there is no cure in their books of allopathy, however i take Clonazepam 0.5mg as and when required and it worked for 3-4 years very effectively, but now its got even worse and even clonazepam doesnt work immediately and effectively so i have 2 pills instead of one and its got frequent. the episodes are also frequent of head shaking in no-no movement. the finger of my left hand also sometimes move but very rarely but is not a concern to me yet. i had worked only in night shifts from past 7 years till now in call centers and that might be the reason. now things are getting worse than before coz now i get a fear feeling about my episode getting started in front of a person i am interacting with. eye contact with strangers ans superiors at work are also the reason of the fear thing. i even tried Primidone but didnt work atall for me. have heard that there are remedies in homoeopathy but not yet tried. got the MRI of brain but nothing found except a slight slip disc in the lower back. have also heard that TREMORSOOTHE works but didnt tried that yet. this time i have ordered Resveratrol, Kava tea and Skullcap herb ordered on ebay and have a belief that it will work. will keep posted if found any positive ray of light to cure this problem... please keep posted if someone has got relieved with this completely...

I am 27 and have the same problem however my head goes up and down as if nodding to say yes. I am aware of the movement but do not seem to be able to control or stop it. Its as if I get this weird urge to shake my head, i have neck, shoulder and headaches every single day. It is getting so much worse I do not know what to do about it. It actually started about 2 years ago, my dad noticed it but it was minor. I was very stressed at my old job and believe that it caused it however now my job is not as stressful but it is now getting worse.

I went to see my doctor but he was no real help, he put me on medication, i guess some muscle relaxers but that only got me tired and helped me fall asleep at night it was stupid. I am probably going to make another appointment bc it is stressing me out so much and getting me so depressed i do not know what to do about it. Anyone else has any suggestions or ideas on what this could be???? Please help. Thank you!

I see a lot of posts about symptoms, but I do not see any answers, or links to possible answers.
I have the head shakes only at certain times. Mostly when I am sitting in my barber's chair and the clippers are turned on. There are very few other times, but so far, they are few and far between. When I am sitting in the barber chair, I pinch my arm, to avoid the shakes from happening. Most of the time, I can feel them coming on and by pinching harder, I can avoid them from happening. But, there are other times when I cannot avoid them and my barber has to step back until I can get myself under control.
Is this a fear induced type issue? This is very concerning to me, as it has been happening for at least four years now and has not gotten any better.

My head will shake hard back and forth when I encounter something unpleasant-- like when I take a sip of strong alcoholic drink, or when I hear certain horrible music, or when I just think about something really awful. It doesn't worry me much. I feel like it resembles the way a dog shakes when wet, and I suspect it is the origin of the rather universal head-shake that means no. Those cultures that shake their head side to side to mean yes-- Bulgaria, India -- have a tilting to the head movement, which, when practiced, feels warm and pleasant, in contrast to our head shake which is much more of a shudder.

nice. i think since nobody here seems to have a scientific explanation it seems the solution can def be because of our upbringing. when it first started happening, being a buddhist i thought there had to be some deeper meaning to it besides possible brain damage. still get em. every day. wish i knew why i like that i just did it to it did feel good haha

I started getting this around a year ago... Usually when I'm nervous or surrounded by lots of people or feel I'm being looked at by lots of people. I believe I have some sort of anxienty disorder. I was diagnosed with abdominal epilepsy at the age of 2 (I'm 30) but never had seizures. The ones I had are referred to as "complex partial seizures". I have had brain surgery three times due to my brain tumour re-occuring. I know epilepsy has a lot to do with the nervous system so I'm not sure whether it's related or not. I am taking Phenytoin for my eplilepsy which is meant to coat the nerve endings but I still suffer from the shaking. My shakes are up and down instead of left and right. There was an instance a few weeks ago where it happened in a bank with loads of people stood around me. Nightmare. I was on a site a few moments ago and I think it's referred to as "Essential Tremors". Apparantely there is no cure. However, if I stumble across any help I will be right back with advice.

@Ismo_guy, I believe it is but I may be wrong.

hello folks, plz refer to my above post to know more about my problem.
i am back with a complete relief after almost two months now and before i tell u what helped. just letting you about my last episode when i was in a lock-up for 24 hours on the account of drinking n driving on the Dec 31st night. it occured when i lost patience and became restless inside the lock-up, the episode occured after a couple of hours on a full swing and i purposely made a scene out of it, (freaked out), was just an attempt to make the cops somehow take me out of it. i demanded my wallet to them in which i carry Melzap 0.5 (Clonazepam) all the time. since its winter here so they thought that i was just shivering, but once they gave me the strip, i was releived. then after a week when i visited the court about my case, i was nervous and was getting the hint of the episode which might burst out anytime. i popped a pill just to avoid the episode and again i was releived.

a couple of days before the 31st night, i ordered and consumed Resveratrol, Skullcap herb and kava tea (as mentioned on my previous post) which i order from ebay since its not available in India where i live. and I THINKKK it might have done the wonders to me, coz i have never been without Melzap for more than a week or two but this time every single night i count my days and be thankful to the one i believe in.
Hope it works with most of your cases like me too. goodluck to you all. e-mail me if any further discussions

Amol, I am just wondering if the Melzap is still working for your head shaking problem? A good friend of mine has similar problem with head shaking. Did a neurologist prescribe the melzap for you or just a regular family practice/internal medicine Doc? I don't want to send her in the wrong direction; she is stubborn and I don't know if I can even get her to see a Dr. She is definetely getting worse though and I want to help her.

Sananjela, Sorry for replying late since i dont visit this site that often and excuse me for my English which is my 3rd language. Melzap or any brand of Clonazepam used to work immediately always within 5 mins when my episode used to occur. I have seen 5-6 Neurologists. (One of them is the No.1 Neuro Dr. Patankar in Mumbai.) They all gave me Clonazepam and a few other vitamins. Clonazepam was the most common of them. This medicine is just an immediate relief and not complete cure, but is enough for you to gain her trust and confidence after she have it so you could direct her in the right direction solving her issue. Good Luck

I have the same symptoms of my head moving side to side as if I am saying no. Problem with me, is that I had massive surgery to fix herniated discs in my lower thoracic and while I was about halfway through recovery my husband had to slam on the brakes in our car and it sent me into the floor board. After that the nodding started and no one had been able to physically diagnose it, yet the Clonazepam will help. Not immediately, my any means but it does help. I have also experienced that the more I am stressed or nervous, the more likely and the worse the entire episode is. The only advice I was given on this one was that when your stressed or anxious, you're pushing and stressing your neuro-system as well so it will set off or worsen the episodes.

i have desease of head nodding like agreeing for somthing. i feel it more when i am confronted a new situation or rare one. it also happence when i have a challenge before me. and also when i am suppose to do somthing with full concentration. kindly help me if there is any shortest term cure for it or exercise.

shortest term to cure it is Clonazepam

My father has this and he has Meniere's disease, which is an unexplained imbalance in the fluid that your inner ear uses to control your balance. Little is known about the cause of Meniere's, but treatments do exist, and include avoidign things that affect your fluid levels in your body (salt, caffeine alcohol). Many times Meniere's symptoms can be triggered by allergies as well. Hope this helps someone!

Have any of you heard of Dystonia? I think some of the symptoms you describe could be this. It's well worth looking it up.