Eye tic - I'm going nuts

Spacemilk

A muscle in my eye has been spasming/twitching for over a month now and it's starting to drive me crazy.

The muscle is located in the inside corner of my eye, just above my eyelid, but about two centimeters below the inner corner of my eyebrow. Since it's not actually directly on my eyelid, it isn't negatively affecting my vision, although I can sort of see my eyelid twitch in the corner of my eye when this muscle spasms.

Things I have done in an attempt to make it stop - these are all based on anecdotal, not doctoral, advice that I found on the internets - none of these have produced a noticeable effect:
-I eat a LOT more potassium. I drink at least one cup of V8 juice a day (20% of your DV, true story), eat at least one banana, take supplements. I also take a magnesium supplement, since I read that can be a cause. For my supplements I'm taking a multivitamin, a B-vitamin, and a magnesium/calcium supplement.
-I've reduced my sodium intake. (although this could definitely use work)
-I've been successfully getting 7-8+ hours of sleep a night, up from my usual 6 hours before my eye starting spazzing out.
-I completely cut coffee out of my diet. On occasion I'll have a mug of green tea, no more than 1 in a day, and I don't do this more than 2 days a week.

Things I probably have not been so successful at doing:
-Reducing my stress level/relaxing a lot more. This is definitely an occasional culprit; for example, about 15 minutes ago my eye was doing fine, then my boss stopped by and my eye went ballistic. He left and it calmed back down. I was definitely stressed/not relaxed while my boss was there, but there are other times where I'm completely relaxed and it'll still be going off.
-Reducing my time in front of a computer. My job pretty much entails me sitting in front of a computer for 6-8 hours per day. When I get home, I will mess around for at least another hour, sometimes more if I play WoW in a night. Also I read a lot, which is more up-close work for my eye. I try to look away and focus on other things frequently, but I don't think I do this enough. Haven't seen noticeable improvement from the little I've been doing.
-Getting eye drops. Another internet-based theory is that eye twitching is caused by dry eyes, this could be true but I haven't noticed it. The last few days my eye has hurt/burned a little but this may be due to me constantly rubbing/massaging my eye when it twitches, trying to get it to stop.

A couple other facts: My work computer's screen resolution sucks, which may be causing more eye strain. Also I wear contacts, maybe once a week I will wear them overnight though they are not intended for that. (yes I know it's bad!)

Like I said, it's not negatively impacting my life besides being a complete nuisance. Also, it happens in social settings which makes me anxious, because I know people can see it and I feel... embarrassed I guess. I just want it to stop.

Most internet posts seem to indicate this is something that passes after a few weeks on its own, if you eat right and sleep well, but it's been over a month of me doing this healthy living stuff, and there's been little to no improvement.

So, any home remedy suggestions, PA? Should I see a doctor? It's getting bad enough that I have seriously considered Botox, which means it's pretty bad.

John Matrix

Wow, looks like you've tried quite a bit. I was set to rush in here and say "eat a banana."

So- eat one banana everyday for a week and you'll be right as rain.

Next!

Richard M. Nixon

I have what sounds like exactly the same thing and I'm pretty sure mine is brought on by stress/overtiredness.

For eye exercises/breaks from the computer, I used to use work rave

bowen

Allergies is a possible cause. Lay off the caffeine if you drink coffee or anything. It's most likely in relation to the eye strain.

Sipex

I had the same thing, less computer time did it for me. Not less hours overall, but...take some breaks. Five, ten, fifteen minutes every couple hours just to get up and do something that doesn't involve a screen.

Also, warm cloth helped a lot.

NotYou

Once you stop caring about it, it will stop. true story.

SniperGuy

Holy crap, I had that too. I still get it time to time. I THINK it's stress related, but no idea. Annoying as piss though.

Saddler

I get that sometimes. It is entirely stress related. Your body is trying to tell you something.

Slider

I had the same thing. It goes away after a while.

ashridah

I've had this off and on. Usually when I'm stressed and/or overworking myself.
Best thing i've ever done to resolve it is to resolve whatever's got me stressed (not always easy). I don't feel that it's ever been related to my caffeine usage, etc (which is pretty high), but it might affect other people differently (and since it can be related to tiredness, caffeine can certainly have an effect there)

Chanus

Stress and changes in caffeine-intake levels (even less-than-usual amounts) are two common causes, from what I know.

It's just a muscle spasm, though. No need to worry about it being anything serious.

TychoCelchuuu

I've got this and as near as I can tell it comes and goes as it pleases regardless of what I do or feel like.

Spacemilk

Thanks for the advice you guys. Wish there was a cure-all but there is still a lot of helpful advice in this thread.

My office computer has one of the "take a break" programs installed on it (it's called Office Athlete, it's got 80s fabtastic graphics, I lurv/hate it) and I just need to get into the habit of actually taking a break when it tells me to, rather than just repeatedly clicking "ignore".

Also over lunch today I made a Target run and bought some Visine eye drops, they seem to have helped somewhat but that may be purely a placebo effect. Certainly over the past hour, since I used them, my eye seems to have calmed down... oops there goes the fucker again. NEVER MIND, FUCK VISINE

I have a distinct feeling it's partially stress related (over the last month or so, basically since the twitch started, I've been having pretty roller-coaster-y love life issues) and partially eye-strain related (also over the past month, my computer-time at work has gone from ~6 hours a day to 8+ hours a day, not to mention I resubbed WoW a month ago...). I'll have to keep working on it, but if what you guys say is true there's probably nothing I can do. Sad! Really I wouldn't mind if these little episodes only happened once a day for a minute or so, but they're multiple times a day (read: 20+), sometimes for 15 minutes or more, on bad days.

edit: I have noticed it seems to get better when I don't pay attention to it or think about it, but that's kinda hard sometimes...

XenoZergie

Not so much offering advice as commiserating, but I have a similar tic in my eye that can sometimes flare up when I'm especially stressed (Northern VA traffic will do that to you).

It also was especially bad after this last PAX! All the caffeine shots they were handing out at one of the booths combined with the general lack of sleep didn't do much to me at the time, but the next couple weeks after I went back to a single soda/coffee per day it was twitching like crazy.

Dog

I've had the same exact problem for a long time now (except on the outside), and did many of the same things you did to attempt to alleviate it. For me, it's always been stress related, and I'm sure spending 10 hours a day on the computer never really helped anything.

Definitely try to take advantage of the "take a break," and go easy on the post-workday computer stuff. That's what worked for me.