eye blinking tic

[Emilia31]

Our son has a chronic eye blinking tic. He started to blink his eyes really hard recently.
It started out as a right,than left  eye wink then became both eyes blinking.
He started out constantly winking and escalated to blinking every second for hours.
We felt very worried about this as his friends are also asking him why he is blinking.

The frequency varies all the time. One day it can be a really bad day of blinking and yet another day it is better .
Then there are days where that particular day has both frequent and infrequent eye blinkings.

So far, we just have the chronic eye blinking tic.

I am so scared of this blinking thing. We are feeling very worried about this as his friends are also asking him why he is blinking.

Can you please advice about this chronic eye blinking tic.



Thank you.
Emilia

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

thank you for the information
JCH MD

[wasworried]

Hi. I have recently noticed my 3 yr old son blinking both eyes repeatedly throughout the day. I was very worried that it was a tic. I called his pediatrician who is excellent. And she referred me to a opthomologist and neurologist. She assumed it was allergies to begin with and prescibed him pataday eye drops in the mean time. I noticed his blinking stopped completely a couple of days after using the drops. I still however took him to neurologist and opthmologist. Both said he was fine. Thk goodness. However the opthomalogist said she noticed he had clogged oil glands in his eye lids which can cause dry irritated itchy eyes , which is why he may have been hard blinking. I hope this helps someone. I noticed he blinked a lot more when on computer ir watching tv. Dr said bc of this problem his eyes were sensitive to light. Good luck. I know the feeling. But I always say remember things could be better but things could also be worse. Good luck!

[wasworried]

Hi

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

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[Canadian_Warrior_Mom]

hi there, my son has been blinking for a few years on and off. He is 5 turning 6 in February. It usually starts in October and lasts for a few weeks. I think it is stress related to back to school. I took him to our optometrist 2 years ago and she said it was perfectly common in boys and if it doesn't go away by the time they are 12 they use botox to numb the nerves and muscles around the eye. This year it is worse than usual. It is now December and he is still blinking. We have him on Aerius and allergy eye drops as out of the blue on December 15th his eyes became very red and puffy. The blinking has been reduced but has not disappeared. Last night I googled eye blinking and botox and found what I think my optometrist was talking about. Blepharospasm - abnormal function of the basal ganglion. This just applies if excessive and pronounced blinking is the only condition. There are many ways to help this, surgery (myectomy), botox and medication. Again, this is from the websites i found. I am not a medical doctor and my son has not been diagnosed with this. We see our optometrist this Wednesday. Our doctor is sending us to an allergist. We are also work very closely with a naturopath who recommended magnesium and we are trying other homeopathic remedies as well. Thanks

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

This is reasonable place to start learning about facial and eyelid tics:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001410.htm


JCH MD