At the start of December 2012 I started getting a twitch on my upper left eyelid. It bloody drives me mental. I visited the local doctors in January and they said it'll pass with time. Now it's the end of February and still no change.
I like a alcoholic drink and keep within my weekly allowance as advised by UK health authority. I also like to have 2-3 cups of coffee and a few cups of tea a day. I cut back on my alcoholic and caffeine for 2 weeks at the start of January, it didn't make a difference.
While on holiday last week I over indulged on beer and caffeine. My eyelid went into overdrive. So again, I'm stopping all beer and caffeine.
After doing a bit of Googling, it seems my the nerve going to my eyelid muscle has gone a bit mental. Stress (I'm not stressed, or I don't think I am), caffeine, alcohol and lack of sleep (plenty of sleep) can make the situation worse.
I've even tried alternating between hot and cold compresses as described on the Myokymia wiki page.
On a similar subject... My father in law (~70 years old) had a more serious condition where his eye would shut and not open a couple of years ago. He visited a neurologist and a opthamologist. The opthamologist gave him botox injections. This didn't work, so the neurologist insisted it was an early Parkinson's Disease. He was on anti depressants for months, then Parkinson medication for months. The issue got resolved when he had an operation to remove the offending muscles from his eyelids. His quality of life has greatly improved since.
My plan is to keep of the caffeine and alcohol for another week. If it's not gone, I'm visiting my doctors again. I'd prefer to have acupuncture first. If that fails, I'm going to have a botox injection to disable the muscle.
5th March 2013
Keeping off the caffeine and alcohol for another week didn't work.
Visited the doctor today. I said about my eyelid twitching and they gave me the usual vague look. Then I said about it being myokymia and the (rather honestly) said they had never heard of that term before. I got the impression it wouldn't be treated under NHS (UK's freebie health service) as it's not life threatening (WTF?), and I'd have to use my private health cover, which I prefer anyway. She didn't know if I should see a neurologist or a opthamologist. She also suggested that a opthamologist may give me "reassurance" that will make it go away (WTF?) She's going to read up about the condition and check with another doctor before letting me know next week.
Hopefully I'll have something positive to report soon...
13th June 2013
It's been over three months since my last post! It's almost gone! After spending considerable time Googling for cures, I came to the conclusion it was a deficiency in potassium or magnesium or a vitamin. I had a 2 month course of multi vitamins with potassium. No change.
Then I read that magnesium deficiency is quite common in the world these days. Turns out the RDA for magnesium is really high and just eating a bowl of bran isn't going to do it. Magnesium apparently is used for brain and nerves. I visited my local chemist and picking up a course of magnesium. After a few weeks the twitching is still occurring, but not as often.
12th November 2013
Roughly 2 months ago I started getting the odd twitch again. :(. As I don't believe in taking artificial food supplements, I stopped the magnesium 3-4 months ago. Looks like I can't go cold turkey on the magnesium.
I bought another course of cheapish tablets from my local store, which almost stopped the twitching. Then I read about cheap magnesium not being fully absorbed into the body. Turns out most of the magnesium was getting pooped out (which can be used to relief constipation). I bought some chelated magnesium from Amazon as this has good reviews and is supposed to have a 100% absorption rate. So far it's working really well - one week into the course and I think the twitch has fully gone.
Rather than go cold turkey and stop magnesium supplements completely, I'm going to eat foods rich in magnesium and only pop the pills if the twitching returns. Must admit, I used to hate eating spinach, but now my taste buds quite like the taste.
