Eye Twitching

Dear Doctor - I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia for approximately 10 years now.  I have suffered from severe chest pains, tender points, pain up my right side of my neck, right jaw, fingers, my toes feel like they will snap off sometimes, the edge of chairs hurt the back of my legs and now I have been waking up at night with severe leg cramps  & toe cramps.  In addition, I have noticed in the last three weeks or so my left eye has been twitching often and these past few days, throughout the entire day.  Are these truly all Fibromyalgia related?  I have been under a lot of stress between being diagnosed with pre-cancerous cervical cancer; breast cancer; going through a bi-lateral matectocmy & reconstruction, bacterial infection in my bloodstream, concussion, myasthenia gravis scare, work stress and my Mother was recently diagnosed with Alzhiemers and I had to move her into assisted living.  The twitch could just be stress.  But, I wanted to ask because my luck has not been too great these days.

[geminigirl1963]

I'm not a doctor, but I am a fellow fibro sufferer.  I'm sorry you've been having such a hard time and undergoing so much stress right now.

Muscle twitches can and do occur with fibro, but they can and do also occur with stress, so, unfortunately, it's hard to say what might be causing the eye twitch.  Majority of the time, eye twitches are absolutely nothign to worry about - as we both said, could be caused by stress - but if you're finding that it's happening ALL the time or affecting your vision at all, I would strongly suggest you get it checked out by at the very least your PCP, if not your eye doc (preferably).  You also mentioned that you've recently had a concussion, and it could be that the eye twitch might have something to do with that.

Best of luck with everything!

[deadgamegrrl]

I agree w/geminigirl.  I have a lot of twitching due to fibro, and occasionally my eye will twitch.  I have a friend that doesn't have fibro that can always tell when she is getting stressed because the first thing that happens is her eye twitches!  So the combination of fibro and stress is probably causing it to worsen.
Even so, getting checked out is a good idea, if nothing else it will give you some peace of mind that nothing else is going on!

[Lattesan]

Thanks for both your comments.  I really do appreciate it.  I did speak with my PCP and made an appointment.  I may also see my eye doctor as well.  There was a period of 18 months or so where I could not get a new prescription for contacts/glasses because every time I went in, my prescription was different.  Plus, I had other symptoms.  I was then sent to an eye doctor/surgeon at Doheny Eye Institute.  He first thought I had Myastenia Gravis, but then came to the conclusion that I did not after all the tests.  He said a concussion can cause symptoms for 18 months or so.