sudden eye darting in 8yr old

[donnamama]

Our daughter has recently started a horizontal eye darting problem (mostly to right but sometimes to left). Took her to ped. opt. doc and not nystagmus or any other eye disease.  She was bitten by a tick in mid-Nov and over past few wks had low grade fever, shaking at night, headaches, irritable, sleeplessness, pain in legs.  We are waiting for Lymes test (one came back neg).  Does anyone have any thoughts as to what this could be?  I am very scared for my daughter.

[psycho101]

There is the sudden possiblity that there is a disturbance in her mental stimulus. Some events, should i be from the past, present, or he foresight into her future may set off some psychological affect in her mind that, in turn, causes her body to be affected. Trauma is a horrible experience, especially when the afflicted is young and has the tendency to absorb every bit of information they can contain. I am young so this advice may not be useful and I'm sorry if I offended you but this is just one of the possiblities of her sudden eye darting.

-13 year old student

[mamie]

My son did the same eye movement last year when he was 8. His ped. told me it was just a nervous tic. She said it would go away w/in a year and she was right !!! Good luck!

[donnamama]

THank you for your response.  We just heard back that Lymes tests came back negative.  I am so confused as I thought for sure it was that.

[CCF-Neuro-M.D.-CS]

I agree it is important to rule out a possible infection such as Lyme or other tick diseases. If the eye movements are not under the control of your daughter it could be due to intermittent dysfunction of the vestibular system (balance center), or possibly small seizures (but I think this is unlikely due to the bilateral movement). Also some inflammatroy conditions could cause similar symptoms. What I would recommend is having a consultation with a pediatric neurologist. After this a MRI of the brain and perhaps a spinal fluid analysis may need to be performed to better define what is occuring. Good luck.