My eye keeps twitching?!
Question: My eye keeps twitching?
How can I stop this? It's really annoying.
Answers:
There is no real way to stop it. There are triggers for some people such as stress, lack of sleep or caffeine. If you can figure out if one of those things are the cause, then you might be able to reduce the twitching.
Employed at an ophthalmologist's office.
That annoying lid twitch is called myokymia - it's due to a spasm of the fine-tuned muscles within the eyelid called the orbicularis oculi. This muscle is super sensitive to stressors such as excess caffeine, lack of sleep, stress, fatigue, etc.
Although not a 100% effective treatment, antihistamines have been shown to decrease that annoying twitch. Topical antihistamine eye drops or oral antihistamines work about equally well. Benedryl is a common oral antihistamine. Don't be confused though - this isn't an allergic condition (as someone typically uses antihistamines for an allergy)! Antihistamines supposedly increase the latency of the muscle fibers and help get the muscles back under control.
Here's some info: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/12… .
And on antihistamine treatment: http://www.mastereyeassociates.com/Eye-c… .
Hope this helps!
Optometry intern.
She said everything I was going to say, only better