Lower Eyelid is twitching for over 2 days

[gr81lives]

My left lower eye lid is twitching.

It has been twitching for over two days.

Is there anything I can do? Is there anything I should worry about? My sight is fine.

[Forum-OD-MP]

its called myokymia.  it is usually not dangerous.  

read this thread:

http://www.medhelp.org/perl6/EyeCare/messages/512.html

[gr81lives]

thank you so much for responding so fast!!!

[gr81lives]

Sorry one more question. How long should I let this go on for if it does not stop?

Thanks you for your time!!!

[Ag-i-doc]

how long should you wait before doing anything...hmmm...a week?  if it is still going on in 1 week make an appt with an eye doc.

until then try the following:

1) get more sleep this week
2) use warm compresses (warm water on a washcloth) a few times/day
3) try to de-stress
4) drink less caffiene

studies show that the most common cause of myokymia is stress &/or lack of sleep.  but just in case you sleep plenty and are not stressed out, the number 2 cause is "idiopathic", meaning "no one knows".  so you could just be having bad luck.

if it is still going on and you make your appt with an eye doc, tell him/her that some other eye docs (me among them) have had success treating it with prescription-strength antihistamines (like patanol, zaditor, optivar).  antihistamines are pretty harmless to try and work a lot of the time, and most docs dont mind writing you a rx for it b/c its so benign.

if NONE of that works, and you go weeks on end of twitching (which i would say is going to be highly unlikely), then you'll have to consider that you might have facial nerve damage (which sounds bad, but probably wouldnt be that big of a deal).  thats when you'd be thinking about botox injections...

[gr81lives]

I just want to ask one more dumb question.

I took a hot rag and out it over my eye lid that is twitching. Once I did that it started to twitch even faster for a about 30 seconds and slowed down. Is that a normal thing?

Before even putting a warm rag on it it would do that every so often not so much. Is that part of the myokymia as well?

Thank you so much for all your help.

[Ag-i-doc]

yes, that is characteristic of any "twitch"...comes & goes, worse sometimes vs others, etc.

having it temporarily speed up when you put the cloth on it is not IMO a significant finding...certainly not dangerous, anyway

[TreeFrog917]

Hi, my right eyelid has been twitching since new years eve, its been six days and it hasnt shown signs of stopping, i havent been sleeping well because of it, is there ways to stop it?