Well, it's happening again. My right eye just below the brow is twitching. In 2001 I had an eye twitch that lasted for three weeks! When you're constantly feeling your eye quiver, three weeks is a long time. I fear an eternal twitch.
As someone who spent years looking at muscle under the microscope, I can visualize the long slender striated cells glowing red with umpteen blue dots -many nuclei. Imagining calcium flowing through channels embedded like donuts in the cell's membrane, I think, Yes, I need potassium and reach for the bananas.
I first noticed it while brushing my teeth. Looking close, I saw it go. Like a small creature trying to get out, the muscle struggled. It twitched through breakfast. It twitched through the credit card transaction at the grocery store, and it moved to my rendition of Bo Diddly's Mona while I practiced the guitar.
Maybe it was caused by the piece of glitter that took two days to find and extract (an occupational hazard). Or maybe it's because of fatigue or stress (that's what my opthamologist would say). Or perhaps it's a sign of serious neurological doom (my brain just goes there sometimes).
Serious persistent eyelid spasms, blepharospasm, is associated with neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease. Sometimes damage to the basal ganglia (a structure of the brain responsible for motor control and many other things) causes the problem. But really, no one has been able to map out the mechanism behind this irritating phenomenon and I am relieved to find out that it's rare to identify a condition in which to link it.
And if it does go on and on there is a treatment -injection of botulinum toxin. Famous for treating wrinkles, the paralyzing poison promises that the eyelid will loose its groove.
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