It makes sense that fatigue could be involved. Wayne Cornblath, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Michigan’s Kellogg Eye Center, told Time magazine, “and we know that getting more sleep can help, but we don’t know why.” Have you been getting your 7–8 hours of sleep every night? Or have you been putting in the extra hours at work-or on your novel? If you’ve had a lot of late nights recently, that’s probably why your eye is complaining. Get over the hump, and then take a couple days to recover, and the twitching will likely go away. Something’s troubling you, you’re going through a rough week (final edits due!), or you’re not sleeping well. Stress releases hormones in the body that prepare it for fight or flight-and also cause muscle arousal, which may affect your eyelid muscles. “Your body is telling you that you are stressed or tired,” Jeffrey Cain, M.D., told Real Simple magazine. Monica, M.D., clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, told Shape magazine that stress is the number-one reason for a twitchy eye. Have you suffered more stress than usual lately? Dr. Once you know the cause, you can take steps to eliminate it, so your eyes look and act more normal in the future! 1. Likely you’ll notice one or more factors that contributed to your spastic eyelid. Since it’s not a serious condition, we don’t have many studies on it, but most eye doctors have a good idea what may be behind it. Even doctors and scientists aren’t really sure. How do you know what’s causing your eyelid to twitch? You’ll have to do some detective work. Ignore it, and your body may up the ante next time with a more painful or inconvenient warning sign. If you fix it now, you’ll be more likely to avoid more serious problems down the road. Even though it’s not serious, it’s telling you that something’s not quite right. No matter how long the twitching lasts, however, you’d be wise to figure out what’s causing it. Usually the spasms go away on their own in a few weeks, though they can continue on for months. If you have just the one eye twitching, though, and no other symptoms, most likely you’ve got a common condition and you don’t have to worry too much about it. Note: If you notice other symptoms, like muscle spasms in your face, redness or swelling in the eye, a discharge from the eye, or if your eye completely closes when it twitches, be sure to see your eye doctor right away. Once in a great while, eyelid spasms may be early signs of other neurological disorders, including Bell’s palsy, dystonia (movement disorder), Parkinson’s disease, and Tourette syndrome, but this is highly unlikely in most cases.
The good news is that it’s a common occurrence. Just as you may experience an involuntary muscle spasm in your elbow or knee, you can also experience it in the eyelid. What causes eye twitching anyway? Is it a sign something else is going wrong? Is there any way to get it to stop? What Are Eyelid Spasms?Īlso called eye spasms, eyelid twitching, eyelid tics, or “myokymia,” these annoying distractions are caused by the small muscles and nerves around the eye.
This obviously wasn’t an isolated problem, so I decided to dive into it. Or could it be it was time for a trip to the eye doctor? Others thought it had something to do with nutrient deficiencies. People seemed to have all sorts of ideas about what might be causing it. My body is just reacting to the excess load.īut then I saw a tweet in my timeline from another fellow writer suffering the same thing. Between a burgeoning project load, frequent power outages, a full-on writer’s conference, and a recent health problem in the family, it’s not a surprise.
I figured it must have something to do with the fact that I haven’t been getting much sleep.
It seemed I should be lurking in the shadows in some horror movie with my ax in my hand, my left eye spazzing of its own accord, a subtle signal of my evil intentions. I’ll be typing away and all of a sudden, I’ll feel that telltale muscle spasm or nerve jump or whatever it is, and it’s like a butterfly beating its wings on my eyelid. For about the last three weeks, my left eye has been twitching.