Susan Collins Discloses Longstanding Essential Tremor Diagnosis

Sen. Susan Collins announced that she has a benign essential tremor, a condition she has had for the entire time she has served in the United States Senate. The 73-year-old Maine Republican, who launched her bid for a sixth term in February, said the tremor has had “absolutely no impact” on her ability to do her job or on how she feels each day.

She treats the condition with medication and described it as inconvenient at times but otherwise inconsequential.

Collins made the disclosure in an interview with News Center Maine. “What I have is an extremely common condition that is called a benign essential tremor. I have had it for the entire time that I have served in the United States Senate,” she said. She noted that she has never missed a single Senate vote in her nearly 30 years in office, a streak approaching 10,000 consecutive votes.

“If you talk to anybody in Washington, they will tell you that I am the hardest working person that they have ever worked with, and the fact is I’ve never missed a single vote in all the time that I’ve been honored to represent the people of Maine,” Collins told the outlet.

The condition is distinct from Parkinson’s disease. It affects about 5 percent of adults over 40 and roughly 20 percent of people over 65, according to Dr. Rees Cosgrove, chief of the Division of Functional Neurosurgery at Mass General Brigham in Boston.

It can be managed with medication, lifestyle changes or other treatments and is generally not dangerous, though it can worsen over time. Collins is the longest-serving member of Congress from Maine and the longest-serving Republican woman in the chamber.

She was first elected to the Senate in 1996.