What can be the reason for a twitching eye?

Question

My mom's eye is twicthing for about a week now. It stops and then continues after a while? What could be the problem?? What can become a problem?

Thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

This is known as myokymia and is generally harmless, just annoying.  It's known causes are stress, lack of sleep, a possible potassium deficiency, too much caffeine, etc.  There really is not a treatment for it and it can last for 3 to 6 months.  Some wives-tale type treatments involve remedying the above with more sleep, less caffeine, eat bananas, and one interesting one....drink tonic water as the quinine it helps to calm the eye.  If your mother likes G&T's she might try one of those of an evening!  It's how I treat my myokymia on occasion....great for stress too!  (Of course that last bit is tongue-in-cheek).

Answer 2

Honestly, I had the same problem numerous time in my life. However I doubt the reason I have them is the same as your mother. See, my eyes used to twitch the way your describing after long periods of video gaming. Maybe she watches too much television or she's on the computer too often. All I can say is that I drenched a washcloth in hot water and placed it over my twitching eye. Seemed to do the trick after awhile.

Answer 3

It's almost always simply stress and fatigue, but there seems to be a lot of that about ("Eye twitch" has been asked 2,503 times on Y!A).

Apart from getting more sleep and a more relaxed liefstyle...

("Yeah, right, tell me how"... is a frequent response to that suggestion, however true it is.)

In some people there's a connection with marginally low potassium levels.  Try feeding your mother fresh tomato juice or bananas.

There's almost no association with any serious condition, while the eye twitch is the only symptom.  It just indicates a slight overdose of "life".