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Greg & Suzanne wrote:
>
> My father, who is 81, has a tremor that slowly developed over nine years.
> A year ago, after Dad had a bout with pneumonia, the tremor spread from his
> right hand to his right arm & is quite pronounced.  He has not been on any
> medication for it, but it now is beginning to really bother him, although
> he still drives & manages with most things.  His doctor suggested that Dad
> look into whether he would be interested in taking Inderol & Procardia for
> it.

Inderal (propranolol) is a "beta-blocker" drug usually prescribed to
reduce excessive heart pulse rate, but also is approved and used to
control essential tremor. Until now, it hasn't been reported to cause
any motion disorder, but by coincidence, the current Archives of
Neurology (v.57, pp570-571) contains a related case report. My review
(to be in CSR JUN 00) follows:

Palomeras E et al;Arch Neur 2000;57:570-571:
They report a patient receiving gabapentin (Neurontin) to treat
essential tremor. He developed severe dystonia on addition of
80mg/day of propranolol (Inderal), which alone has not been known
to cause movement disorder. Reduction of propranolol to 40mg/day
has resolved the dystonia problem, so they suspect a heretofore
unreported interaction of the two drugs.

Cheers,
Joe
--
J. R. Bruman   (818) 789-3694
3527 Cody Road
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403-5013