Annoying eyelid twitching

[IamPixie]

Dr. Steve,

For the last week or so my left eyelid keeps twitching every morning. Like someone has an invisible thread and is lightly tugging at the bottom of my eyelid. I'm not too worried about it but it is kind of annoying and I was wondering what causes this. My mom was telling me it is hereditary, is that true? Can I do anything to stop it?

Thanks in advance!

[Furtherman]

I get that twitch too!! I thought it was just from being tired.

But I'll await the good doctor...

[Drunky McBetidont]

Dr. Steve,

For the last week or so my left eyelid keeps twitching every morning. Like someone has an invisible thread and is lightly tugging at the bottom of my eyelid. I'm not too worried about it but it is kind of annoying and I was wondering what causes this. My mom was telling me it is hereditary, is that true? Can I do anything to stop it?

Thanks in advance!

i am not a doctor, but i play one on the interwebs....

i have the same thing. my doctor told me it was caused from stress. in your case i would blame the atlantic ocean.

[IamPixie]

i have the same thing. my doctor told me it was caused from stress. in your case i would blame the atlantic ocean.

You may be on to something. I came back last Tuesday night and the first day I experienced it was Wednesday morning and every morning thereafter.

[Dr Steve]

Dr. Steve,

For the last week or so my left eyelid keeps twitching every morning. Like someone has an invisible thread and is lightly tugging at the bottom of my eyelid. I'm not too worried about it but it is kind of annoying and I was wondering what causes this. My mom was telling me it is hereditary, is that true? Can I do anything to stop it?

Thanks in advance!

Excellent question, and a very common problem!

Eyelid twitching is generally caused by fatigue, stress, or the ingestion of caffeine. It often starts suddenly, but will disappear gradually...so gradually that one day you'll just notice "hey, my eyelid quit twitching a couple of days ago and I didn't notice!"

Getting more sleep and avoiding caffeine are the main ways of trying to improve this annoying issue. Some people have it so bad they have to have botox injections. Yikes!

Now, if your twitching lasts more than 1-2 weeks, is accompanied by visual changes, or the eye totally closes (spasm), or there is discharge or discoloration of the eye or eyelid, you need to see someone to make sure there isn't something else going on.


Hope this helps!


I had an episode of EARDRUM twitching...that was brutal; it sounded like a drum being beat at random in my ear. Finally went away. See the thread on earwax for the reason why this happened (hint...don't try to clean out your ears by turning your ear into the path of your showerhead while taking a shower...)

[sailor]

i get that all the time and also similar twitches on my upper stomach, arms, and other areas. are thess related to the eye twitch thing?

[Dr Steve]

i get that all the time and also similar twitches on my upper stomach, arms, and other areas. are thess related to the eye twitch thing?


You can "twitch" anywhere there are muscles...what you don't want is to experience "Fasciculation" which is a rapid, random twitching of a muscle or muscle group. If you have fasciculation, get it checked out.

Any weird twitching that affects your ability to perform functions you could do before bears examination by a doctor, too.

Here's a reasonable wiki article on "benign fasciculations" that's ok...it's getting late and I'm getting lazy so here's the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_fasciculation_syndrome

If you have any questions, feel free to write.

your friend,


steve

[Friday]

haha

i used to get this all the time at my old job... Vantage Apparel.
We called it the 'vantage palsy' because it seemed like a nervous twitch caused by insane amounts of stress. lol.
many of us suffered from this odd twitching....

coincidentally... since I have been unemployed.... NO eye twitching!


(no money either hahaha :wallbash:)

[EliSnow]

I had a lot of eye twitching in law school. Saw a doctor who said it was from eye strain from reading so much in law school. Had to get reading glasses, which I didn't need as much after law school.

[LaBoob]

coincidentally... since I have been unemployed.... NO eye twitching!


(no money either hahaha :wallbash:)

:lol: I used to get this for weeks at a time with my old job (MASSIVE amounts of stress)... I used to think it would never go away and I would try a variety of changes (more sleep, no caffeine) to make it go away but it would continue anyway. It became a big joke with people in my life, but I wasn't really laughing.

Since I've been unemployed I haven't had a twitch! I think we found a cure!!!

[A.J.]

Interesting. I get this sometimes and I always wondered what caused it.

[drjoek]

All this time I thought Pixie was winking at me :glurps: