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[Jelle]

I'm sure you guys have had one of those annoying eye twitches at some point, an involuntary contraction of the muscles that work your eyelids in case you're not familiar with 'em.
Me I get them from time to time and they usually go away after a while. Lately though...well I consider myself a relatively patient person and have been patiently waiting for these darn twitches to stop like they normally do, for what must be roughly three months now.
Three months of excrutating annoyance, suffice to say my patience has ran out and it's starting to drive me completely insane.
It's not non stop mind you, just sporadically but frequent enough to be a major pain in the ass. It's in the right upper eyelid in case you're wondering.

Soo I thought I'd ask you guys for some advice on how to get this minor but oh so annoying inconvenience behind me. I've done some searching trying to figure out if there's anything to be done about it, but the DF community seems pretty knowledgeable about medical matters so here I am asking.

So far from what I've gathered there's a number of causes to the problem, these being stress, fatigue, potassium defeciency, to much caffeine and eye strain.
To go through the list caffeine is definatly not the issue as I do not drink any coffee or caffeinated drinks at all. Unless I'm consistently eating something that contains the stuff however I'd be surprised.
Potassium I have no idea. As a measure I've started eating the occasional banana as I've read they contain a fair amount of the stuff.
Fatigue seems likely I'm always tired, probably could do with a tad more sleep. In fact my sleep has been terrible ever since this summer. See I appear to be a mosquito magnet so it's either poor sleep due to the pesky bugs pestering me or not having a window open for a healthy air supply. Here's me patiently waiting for the buggers to freeze to death, when it finally stops being so hot.
Stress isn't at a particular high, except due to the twitching itself wich is getting me more and more annoyed lately.
Aaand lastly eye strain. Guilty as charged there, I spend a lot of time behind a monitor. I study informatics so most of the studying involved a computer, and pretty much all of my recreation is behind a PC as well. I've lately tried to keep my eyes from getting strained to much by making sure I'm in a propperly illuminated room after dark. I'm quite used to sitting in a dark room but I realize it's not healthy so here's hoping that will help.

As some additional information I should add it's not only eye twitches but overall muscle twitches, but nowhere near as frequent and consistent as the same damn eyelid and not nearly as annoying. I hardly get them at all but they do sometimes happen. Massaging the muscles helps a bit.
Additionally I consistently do not drink enough. I've no idea why  but I never feel particularly thirsty, some days I hardly drink at all. Yesterday for example I only really drank a glass and a half of water, didn't really feel thirsty/forgot to drink anything else.
Don't know how relevant this is to the actual problem, I'll be trying to drink a more healthy amount each day anyway.
Lastly I should add I don't eat a lot of salt with my food. Don't know if I simply do not have enough electrolytes in my body as a result, eating to much salt is generally depicted as being terribly unhealthy.

That about sums it up. Help a fellow B12er out before I go stark raving mad will you? 


(looking back at this post I wrote a metric ton didn't I, I hope it was readable.)

[Jelle]

I just realize this probably belonged in life advice instead of general as I am asking for advice...perhaps the thread can be moved?

[Shades]

You've already mentioned it, but the only solution I found when I had twitches (although never for 3 months at a time) was to get more sleep. Now I get a solid 7-8 hours a night I'm fine.
If you have trouble actually getting to sleep because your thinking of things all the time then brain dumping to paper worked well for me, mosquitoes I can't help with sorry.

[miauw62]

You can normally move/lock your own threads. Look for some extra buttons at the bottom or top.

[Shadowlord]

I'm not a doctor, so I'm not going to make any wild guesses. Perhaps you should ask a doctor instead of a random internet forum.

[Jelle]

Naw not nearly serious enough to bother a doctor with, unless it were to be a symptom of an underlying neurological problem wich seems unlikely.

[Tellemurius]

from the looks of it bro, just get some sleep, kill off that lag.

[Andrew425]

Do you wear contacts?

I guess other then that drink some more water go for a walk every day and try to get more sleep.

[Shades]

I guess other then that drink some more water go for a walk every day and try to get more sleep.

walking also releases endorphins, and everyone loves endorphins

[Shadowgandor]

I usually get the Eye Twitching as well when fatigued and usually after having spent quite a long time behind my computer. What worked for me is to look out of your window to a distant object. Your eyes will have to adjust to the distance and will cause the ciliary muscles to relax and causing the zonular fibers to tighten. This basically allows your eye-muscles to stretch for a bit, the same way you might be stretching your limbs after sitting in a certain pose for a long while
I just do this every hour or so, does wonders against headaches as well!

It was a tip from my optician to keep my eyes in good health and so far, it works great. My eyes feel a lot less fatigued at the end of the day and the twitching became a lot less worse but I have no proof that this caused the twitching to go away.

[EuchreJack]

Eye twitches can also be an allergic reaction (that is why I get them, usually).  Try taking an over-the-counter anti-allergy/anti-histamine medicine for a couple of days, and see if it helps.  If it is allergies, and the anti-allergy/anti-histamine medication is effective (they vary in effectiveness to certain allergies and vary by person in effectiveness), then you'll notice the eye twitching either decrease significantly or disappear in a two to three days (it takes a while for enough of the medicine to accumulate in your body).

I could also suggest running a cloth under warm water and placing that over your eyes.  It won't stop the twitching entirely, but it'll make the eyes feel better.

[ab00]

For the mosquitos, get one of these.

[Jelle]

Nope no contacts, or glasses or anything of the sort.
I haven't noticed anything in particular that I might be allergic to, I've no other allergies I know of either.

I usually get the Eye Twitching as well when fatigued and usually after having spent quite a long time behind my computer. What worked for me is to look out of your window to a distant object. Your eyes will have to adjust to the distance and will cause the ciliary muscles to relax and causing the zonular fibers to tighten. This basically allows your eye-muscles to stretch for a bit, the same way you might be stretching your limbs after sitting in a certain pose for a long while

This works really well after trying it out the last days, thanks for the advice. Focusing the eyes on something else every half hour or so has really made the eyes less fatigued.
Sadly though still twitching and with more or less same intensity.

Edit:Forgot to add I'm getting between 7 and 8 hours sleep a day so I should be good.

[ISP]

Have you had facial injuries? Like to the right side of your head.

Try rubbing the side of your face from your eye to ear with your palm.

You can also try rubing the top lip of your eysocket with your thumb (not the inside, thats bad for your eye).

[EuchreJack]

I haven't noticed anything in particular that I might be allergic to, I've no other allergies I know of either.

Allergies are the sort of thing you notice due to the symptoms, such as eye twitching, sneezing, etc.  It generally takes complicated medical tests to determine whether someone has allergies, and they can develop spontaneously.  Since visiting the doctor isn't an option, I suggested allergy meds, if you can get them cheaply.  Or if a friend has allergies and uses over-the-counter stuff, bum a few pills off them.  If the problem is allergies, a single pill should provide noticable relief.