Stopping uncontrolled hand tremors without surgery

MACUNGIE, Pa. (WPVI) -- A Lehigh County man with a love for model trains and automobiles says his hands are his most important tools.

But life gave Jeffrey Peters an unexpected twist that made fulfilling his passions a true challenge, until he found an incredible breakthrough.

Peters takes a lot of pride in his 1951 Jeep Willys Overland. Restoring it to its former glory has been a long-time dream.

"It's a simple person with a simple truck," he says.

He uses skills he learned from his father.

"When he was working on cars, we were the kids who had to hold the flashlights," he recalls fondly.

Peters eventually developed an interest in smaller scale, tinkering with model trains, and has dedicated most of his basement to a personal handmade model train wonderland.

"It's one of my places I can come to just get away from everything," he says.

The care and attention to detail in his train room is astonishing, built up with countless hours of tedious work. It's safe to say that his hands are his most important tools when it comes to his hobbies.

"When I started building this, it was very easy, and then it became very hard, and I mean very hard," says Peters.

He started to notice difficulty performing simple daily tasks, such as eating and writing. Over time, his hands started shaking uncontrollably.

"It's the things you take for granted that aren't there," says Peters.

On a visit to Lehigh Valley Health Network, part of Jefferson Health, Peters learned he has essential tremor.

This neurological disorder causes uncontrollable shaking, mostly affecting the hands. For six years, Peters struggled with this shaking till his hobbies became too much.

Dr. Gregory Davis, a neurosurgeon formerly with the Lehigh Valley Health Network, took an interest in Peters' case.

Medications did not lessen the tremors, so doctors took another approach. They performed a minimally invasive and incisionless procedure on him called a focused ultrasound.

It uses sound waves guided by MRI to disable the malfunctioning circuit in the brain.

"This is an update to ablation technology, and it's a really big game changer. We have the ability to monitor the results in real time while the patient's awake," says Dr. Davis.

This technique targets the spot in your brain that causes the tremors. The procedure led to a 90% reduction in shaking for Peters' dominant hand, and soon afterward, he was eating and drinking normally again.

And he's back in his train room, continuing to add to his collection.

"I'm actually picking things up and moving them; I wasn't knocking things over," says Peters. "It's amazing, just simply amazing."

Peters says he could not be happier with the results of the procedure.

He urges anyone with essential tremor to talk to the neurology team at LVHN to get the life-changing help they need.

Although Dr. Davis recently moved to another state, Dr. Vishal Patel and Dr. Chengyuan Wu also perform the ultrasound procedure at LVHN.

For more information on this procedure visit: LVHN.org.