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Doctor explains those annoying eye twitches we all get (and when to seek help for it)

It's called "myokymia" and the causes range from totally benign to potentially serious.

Photo credit: Canva

What causes those tiny throbs in your eyelid?

You're just sitting there living your life when all of a sudden your eyelid starts going haywire. It's kind of a twitch, but more like a rapid pulsing or a fluttering—almost as if a tiny creature were trying to pound its way through the skin around your eye.

Not the most appealing visual, I know, but most of us have experienced those annoying eye twitches at some time and been baffled by them. Some of us may even have them on a regularly basis due to causes we either haven't pinned down or addressed. (I recently tried out monovision contact lenses for the first time and my eyelids twitched like mad for a week, which my optometrist confirmed was due to eye strain from my vision trying to adjust.)

Those pulsing twitches are known as facial myokymia, and the primary reasons for it were broken down by Dr. Joe, MD, an ER doctor who shares health information on his social media channels.

"Have you ever had this?" he asked, showing a video of someone's lower eyelid pulsing. "This is something called facial myokymia and it's a persistent twitching of one of the muscles around your eye. The common causes associated with this include too much caffeine, stress, anxiety, poor sleep, dehydration, and some electrolyte problems." According to the Mayo Clinic, other common causes of eye spasms include alcohol intake, bright light, fatigue, nicotine, wind or air pollution, dry eyes, or other irritation of the eyes.

Dr. Joe said that the condition is usually harmless, which is true. However, on rare occasions eye twitching can be a symptom of a potentially serious condition. If eye spasms are persistent, it's a good idea to talk to your doctor about it.

How do you know when it's time to see a doctor about an eyelid twitch?

What does "persistent" mean when it comes to eyelid spasms? Are we talking hours, days, weeks, months?

The Mayo Clinic says eye twitching usually goes away on its own within a few days or weeks with enough rest, stress relief and decreased caffeine, but you should schedule an appointment to consult with your doctor if:

  • The twitching doesn't go away within a few weeks.
  • The affected area feels weak or stiff.
  • Your eyelid completely closes with each twitch.
  • You have difficulty opening the eye.
  • Twitching happens in other parts of your face or body as well.
  • Your eye is red or swollen or has discharge.
  • Your eyelids are drooping.
Many people shared that stress is the biggest and clearest trigger for their eye twitches. Others had success with changing their diet or supplementing to balance their electrolytes. A few shared that their eye twitches were early signs of a chronic condition, such as Bell's palsy or multiple sclerosis. (But again, most eye twitches are benign and most serious causes are accompanied by other symptoms.)

Some cultures assign meaning to eye twitches

People have tried to explain the unexplainable for millennia, which has resulted in various meanings being assigned to random eye twitches across different cultures.

According to All About Vision, in many cultures, a twitch in the left eye is often said to mean something bad is going to happen, while a right eye twitch indicates something positive will. For instance, in the Caribbean, a left eye twitch means someone is talking badly about you or that a friend is in trouble. A right eye twitch means someone is talking positively about your or that you might reunite with an old friend soon. However, the opposite is true in China—left means good and right means bad (except it might depend on the time of day as the meaning gets calculated with the Chinese zodiac and almanac).

In some parts of Africa, a spasm in your upper lid might mean an unexpected arrival and twitching in the lower lid means something will happen to make you cry. n India, a twitch might mean good or bad news, losing or gaining money or even a child being born, depending on where the twitching takes place.

What can you do to stop eye twitches?

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much you can do once a spasm starts. One recommendation is to apply a warm compress to the eye to relax the muscles, but most of the tips for stopping myokymia come down to prevention.

Reduce stress and engage in more stress-relieving activities. Avoid drinking too much caffeine. Get enough sleep—even napping can help minimize eye twitches. Stay hydrated. Keep your eyes lubricated with drops if they tend to get dry. Basically, all of the things that contribute to overall health can help prevent eye twitches along with caring for your dry eyes.

So if your eyelid starts wigging out on occasion, don't be alarmed, but do see it as a sign that you may want to adjust some of your health habits. (And, of course, consult a doctor if they truly become problematic in your life.)

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If this looks familiar, you may have cataracts. 2 new sci-fi fixes could help.

If you saw these pictures in a gallery, you might think the glass was smudged.

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Original image by David Hiser/Wikimedia Commons.

The right sides of these pictures are all blurry and kind of grey.

"Napoleon Crossing the Alps" by Jacque-Louis David. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

You'd obviously want to get someone to clean it up!

But what if the smudge was inside your eye?

Inside your eyes are natural lenses, like the lens of a camera. The lens focuses light onto the back of our eyes, where specialized cells interpret the image and send that information to the brain. Because all the light we see has to go through the lens, our bodies naturally make it transparent.

Sometimes, however, proteins in the lens start to clump together, forming a small cloudy area that destroys that carefully constructed lens transparency, like replacing a camera lens with a piece of frosted glass. This cloud is what's known as a cataract, and over time, it can spread to cover the entire lens in the eye.

Congenital cataracts. Image from National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health/Flickr.

When this happens, cataracts cause our vision to become blurry and washed out. They can also make light glare really bad and give some people double vision.

More than 22 million Americans over 40 already have cataracts. By the time we turn 80, most of us will have them in some form.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world and mostly happen to people as we age. They can also be found in children and younger adults due to congenital conditions, injury, or illness. About one in every 250 kids is born with or develops cataracts at young age.

Treatments for cataracts do exist. The current solution generally either involves stronger glasses or, if the vision loss is bad enough, surgery to replace an old, cloudy lens with a transparent plastic one.

A young person in Bali recovers from cataract surgery. Image from Agung Parameswara/Getty Images.

But cataract surgery does sometimes come with complications, and some types of the plastic replacement lenses sacrifice the flexibility of our biological lenses — they have trouble focusing on nearby stuff, for instance, and don't work super well in children.

Cataract surgery might be about to get a neat sci-fi upgrade thanks to new research involving stem cells.

Stem cells are a special kind of cells found in our bodies that can transform themselves into different types of cells (like eye cells or brain cells or kidney cells).

They've been a hot area of research, from anti-aging ideas to straight-up regenerating limbs.

Stem cells magnified on a computer screen. Image by Spencer Platt/Staff/Getty.

Two groups of researchers recently published studies investigating if stem cells could help re-grow biological lenses.

One group of researchers in Japan and the U.K. recently used human stem cells to grow cells from many different parts of the eye.

The scientists took human stem cells and coaxed them into transforming into eye tissue. They found that they could successfully make the cells divide into different layers as they grew.

Image from NPG Press/YouTube.

What's cool is that each layer corresponded with a different part of the eye. Cells from the first layer, for example, could potentially become part of the nerve-rich tissue at the back of the eye while cells from between the second and third layers could become the lens, and cells from layers 3 and 4 could become parts of the cornea.

The researchers were even able to successfully transplant the new stem-cell-grown corneas into rabbits. This technique could one day help doctors replace many different parts of people's eyes as they become damaged, although a lot of work needs to be done before we see any tests in humans.

Another research group, meanwhile, experimented with a surgical technique designed to help children regrow new lenses.

The technique is deceptively elegant because it doesn't require any new technology, just a twist on existing techniques.

“This is just a change in a surgical procedure,” said James Funderburgh, a cell biologist at the University of Pittsburghin a Nature press release. “They are not putting in an artificial lens: they are just letting the lens regrow.”

In this new technique, the surgeons use a smaller-than-normal incision to remove the patient's cloudy lens but don't implant a plastic one afterwards. That's because after the lens is removed, some stem cells are naturally left behind in the patient's eye, and it turns out that, by leaving them alone, the body can use those stem cells to grow a brand new lens.

This technique is slower than traditional methods because the child's eye needs about three months to grow a new lens. But the benefit is that the lens won't grow cloudy over time, like some artificial ones do, and the surgery has a much lower rate of complications.

Sunglasses help protect these kids' eyes a few days after cataract surgery. Image from Chris Jackson/Getty Images.

In fact, this technique was so successful, they've even used it on 12 human babies. It's been two years since some of them had the procedure done, and so far, the results seem promising. While this particular technique may not be as useful for older adults (whose cells grow more slowly), it could restore sight to a lot of young people.

“Even if it’s only for kids, it’s fantastic,” said Funderburgh.

Cataracts are one of the most common vision problems in the world, but these cool new tools could help those living with them see the world a whole lot more clearly.

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