Coronation Street star reveals devastating tremor diagnosis

A Coronation Street star has spoke about the challenges they face after a tough medical diagnosis. Actor Rob Mallard - who plays Daniel Osbourne in the long-running soap - was on BBC's Morning Live today (May 15).

On the show, the Manchester-born actor discussed his essential tremor diagnosis. Affecting more than one million Brits, essential tremor is considered one of the most common neurological movement disorders characterised by involuntary, rhythmic tremor of a body part, most typically the hands and arms.

According to the National Tremor Foundation, it is considered a slow progressive disorder and, in some people, may eventually involve the head, voice, tongue (with associated dysarthria, or difficulty speaking), legs, and trunk. It is not to be mistaken for Parkinson's disease, despite being 8–10 times more prevalent.

Rob, 31, said he was just 14 when some friends of his noticed a tremor in his left hand. He said: "I went to the doctors and did roughly a year testing things – thyroid, brain scans, because they were really unsure what it was. They came back and said I had an essential tremor and there was nothing they could do for me and come back if your symptoms get worse and we can try and control them.

"Because they told me there was nothing I could do about it, I just put it to the back of my mind and tried to forget about it. It wasn’t until I got into my early 20s that it progressed and really got worse that I thought I should really look into this. That was when I really got the full scope of it and realised it could be quite degenerative over time."

Despite the tremor slowly becoming worse, Rob has not let it stand in the way of a successful acting career. After starting off in Emmerdale, he moved to Coronation Street and, in June 2017, he won the Best Newcomer award at the 2017 British Soap Awards for his portrayal of Daniel.

"Before I did Coronation Street, I did a couple of episodes of Emmerdale," he said. "In the audition process for that, my agent rang me up and said ‘this is a strange one, but they really like you and would like to offer you the part but they thought you were very nervous and they were worried about how that was going to work when you are on set’.

"At that point, nobody knew what I had so I had to come out to my agent who then explained it to the casting at Emmerdale and then they said ‘have you got coping strategies?’ and I said ‘yes, absolutely’. It was just because of this being a high-pressure situation.

"Then they gave me the job and that was what led to Coronation Street. It almost cut me off at that point, but if I hadn’t been honest about it, I might not have got the job."

Despite being named as a patron for young people with the National Tremor foundation, many viewers appear to not realise that Rob has a tremor. However, there have been challenging moments when his tremor has been noticed by the public.

"I went onto ITV to talk about Coronation Street and got a massive rush of adrenaline from the live TV aspect of it and just started shaking," he said. "I had longer hair at the time too and I had a quiff and when I watched it back, all you could see was the hair shaking.

"Within minutes of me coming off, people on social media were speculating that I was drunk, that I was withdrawing from something, that I had an issue.

"Then I was in a position where I had been hiding this because I thought it was going to stop me doing work whereas now, because I have not been honest about it, the assumptions are getting even worse so I’ve got to make a choice here and I came back and said what it was. It’s an essential tremor, it’s more common than you think, people think it’s an older-people thing and I just found being honest about it has been the best policy."

Rob explained that is tremor is what is known as an active tremor, meaning it starts once he asks his body to start doing something. A passive tremor, as is often seen with Parkinson's, is when people shake regardless of what they are doing.

Things like picking up drinks, using a clutch on a car or even texting on camera can be difficult. "Right now, there is a massive trend on soaps of characters texting each other all the time and then they have to get close-ups of it," he said.

"That is one of the hardest things to do because they have to hold it for about 10 seconds for people to get a good read of what’s on screen. I can’t hold my hand still for that long so we have to do tricks like zooming in really close and I’ll rest my hands on something and then they film it that way. Once they even used someone else’s hand. I have a hand double – I’ve made it!"

Essential tremor does have a familial link, with Rob saying that there is roughly a 60 per cent chance of having it if a family member has it. Rob said that, although his mum does not have an official diagnosis like he does, she does have a tremor.

He also said it did make certain jobs he has had in the past, such as a waiter, challenging, and a few customers did end up with drinks accidentally being poured on them. However, he now has coping techniques including deep breathing, practising certain actions with a prop he might have to use before filming, and also trying to do things in one continuous movement rather than a single action.

He did say that having an alcoholic drink can help settle the nerves, but he strongly warned against using alcohol as a medication or long-term solution.

Dr Oscar Duke said on the show that it was often tough to diagnose, but people should speak to their GP if they had a persistent tremor. He added: "As soon as people notice a tremor, they understandable get very worried because you associate it with a lot of potentially very severe neurological disorders.

"Essential tremor can be one of those – it can have a very big impact on someone’s everyday life. Parkinson’s is much less common."

He said treatments included trying to reduce anxiety and stress levels and cut caffeine intake. Medications including beta blockers can reduce tremors but they do sometimes come with side-effects. Surgically installing a deep brain stimulator electrode into the brain can be an option, which tackles tremors from where they originate in the brain, but it is still innovative.

He added that the NHS does selectively offer an MR-guided focus ultrasound, which uses ultrasound waves fired into the brain to 'burn away' the spot causing the tremors. However, he said it involved millimetre precision and was only offered in certain circumstances.