Nan-of-four gets life back after struggling to carry tea due to condition

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A nan-of-four 'got her life back' after struggling to write and carry cups of tea for years due to an incurable condition. Maureen Greenough, 65, didn't think anything of it when "a little shake" in her hand started several years ago.

But she worried she had Parkinson's and sought medical help after the tremor gradually got worse, spreading down her right-hand side and into her leg, the Liverpool Echo reports. The St Helens rugby league fan said: "It was embarrassing, because if I wanted a cup of tea, I'd have to hold it with both hands.

"I couldn't carry a cup of tea from the kitchen into the lounge without holding it with two hands, and even then I still spilt a bit. "If I went out anywhere, people didn't stare at me, but I was conscious of it. It's not a nice feeling."

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The former nursing assistant is one of more than a million people in the UK with essential tremor, a neurological disorder that causes an uncontrollable shake or trembling in part of the body, and roughly a quarter of people with the condition are severely disabled by their tremors, according to The Walton Centre, a specialist neurology and neurosurgery hospital trust in Liverpool, which Maureen's GP referred her to. At first, treatment options were medication or surgery, but the drugs wore off and brain surgery would have been invasive.

That changed in March when Maureen became the first patient at The Walton Centre to undergo a new "cutting-edge treatment" for essential tremor. The NHS trust won a contract to deliver the new service at the end of last year, making it the first centre in the north of England, and the second in the country, to offer an incisionless treatment for the