This guest posy is by Sarah Wagner Yost of www.sarahwagneryost.com.
Have you ever tried to have an adult conversation with someone but couldn’t concentrate because your eyelid was twitching?
It might be a neurological malfunction. It might, as the superstition says, mean that money will cross your hands soon.
More likely, it’s because your jaw is tight. Do you clench your teeth or grind them at night? If your neck and shoulders get tight when you’re stressed, your jaw is probably also involved. You might also feel a weird itch inside your ear or have a runny nose with no cause.
You can make it stop
Image licensed under Creative Commons
If muscles are to blame, self massage will take care of it. If it doesn’t, check with your doctor to rule out anything more serious.
A trigger point is like a hot little spitfire of a muscle which wreaks random havoc. It often refers pain and seemingly unrelated symptoms to other parts of the body. That’s why trigger points in your mouth can cause your eyelid twitch.
When working on your own trigger points, press as hard as you can stand but not harder. More is not more. You’ll know you’re on a trigger point because it will hurt but in a good way. It will feel satisfying, like you’re scratching an itch.
Get relief in five minutes
- You’ll be sticking your fingers in your mouth so go wash your hands.
- Go on, wash them. This will just take a few minutes.
- Stick your pointer finger inside your cheek and find the hard muscle near the back. This is the masseter muscle. It goes up and down and is the first hard muscle you’ll feel in the cheek.
- Move your finger to the top of the muscle, next to the upper gums and press firmly. You’re looking for the spots that zing. Press each spot for about 30 seconds using all of the pressure you can stand, which may be very little for the first few days. That’s just fine. Pressing hard will not make it better faster. It will likely make it worse. Inch your way around the entire muscle, stopping on any tender spots.
- The next area you’ll work is the gum line above your upper back teeth. Poke around the gumline and massage the zingy areas.
You don’t have to marry this
Four days is plenty for this technique. Do this for five minutes, three times a day for four days or until you stop finding zingers.
Just working those two spots on both sides should bring pretty quick relief of symptoms. You’ll be surprised at how sensitive you are the first couple of times. The sensitivity will get better fast. You’ll get relief from the twitch, jaw pain and itchy ear pretty quickly.
Do you ever suffer eyelid twitch? Have you tried anything to make it stop?
Sarah is a mind-body coach who helps stressed out moms rock it without guilt. If you’ve ever felt bad for saying no, Sarah’s your girl. Working with her is better than Valium. Grab her RSS feed here and follow her on Twitter.
About Guest Contributor
Sarah,
I have had the experience of eye twitching before but didn’t know the cause of it. I wear a niteguard when I sleep because I grind my teeth when I sleep.
I will try your massage technique. Thanks…
Hi Justin,
If you grind, I would bet a million dollars that your twitch is form your jaw muscles. Let me know how it goes for you.
Hit there did you ever hear back from Ryan?, I grind and have invisi lign… I had a mucous cyst in my mouth, in the back by this muscle you describe, I had it surgically removed and ever since I have an eyelid twitch on that same side!! I am going to try this technique and hope to stop the twitch!!
Not Ryan , Justin… Sorry:)
Very occasionally, this happens to me. And when it does, all I get is teasing from my partner! I’ll try this next time, too
Georgina! Give your partner one less thing to tease you about, girl.
My eyelid has been twitching for several months. Probably over 6 months. I do have tmj problems, although it hasn’t caused any pain lately and occasionally my shoulders and neck are sore and give headaches. I don’t believe I grind at night. Could my eye lid twitch be from this tmj? Its on the opposite side of my jaw problem
Eye has been twitching for the last 4-5 days… Upon reading this I relaxed my jaw and its already better
I didn’t realize my jaw was tense, haha.
If it continues, I’ll try the rest of this.
Thanks!
WOW….IT WORKED!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I AM SO GLAD I FOUND THIS SITE. MY RIGHT EYE HAS BEEN VIOLENTLY SPASMING FOR FOUR WEEKS. IT MAKES SENSE…I HAVE TMJ AND I AM A BIT MORE STRESSED THAT NORMAL LATELY. I TRIED YOUR TECHNIQUE AND THE SPAMS INSTANTLY STOPPED. THEY ARE STILL PERIODICALLY JUMPING FROM TIME TO TIME…BUT NOT LIKE IT WAS BEFORE. I WILL CONTINUE TO USE THIS METHOD AND TRY NOT TO CLINCH MY JAW. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
My upper eyelid’s been twitching for 2 weeks now and I don’t know what to do. It’s driving me mad.
I sleep 8-9 hours per night, exercise regularly, have a sensible diet. No stress going on in my life, I relax and meditate. My jaw is not tense in the least bit.
I’ve tried all sorts of things and nothing has worked so far. I’ve been trying to massage but that doesn’t seem to work either.
Any other suggestions?
Help!!!!!! Before I lose my mind!
EMFs?
Sylvie, did your twitching stop? What worked for you? I am having the exact same symptoms and I’ve tried everything- even muscle relaxers!!
this worked right away. I think after four days I will be good. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
My eye has been twitching for 3 months! As soon as I touched my inner cheek it stopped. However, as soon as I stopped massaging, it comes back… Will repeated massaging help, or am I a lost cause?
my lower eye lid twitches all the time, but I have noticed it happens whenever my cousin/roomate is around,there fore i believe it is due to stress, she causes alot of stress, everytime I am around her I want to run, if I try the massging will my eyetwitching continue since my stress source is still living with me????
I can hardly believe how well and how quickly this works. My left upper eyelid has been bothering me for weeks, and was just in deep spasm when I browsed on to this page, but now I feel fine. I’ve kn0wn for a while that I tend to carry stress in the jaw, but I never would have guessed it was causing other symptoms like that, massaging out the ‘zingers’ really did the trick. Thanks, Sarah, you are practically a miracle-worker!
Damn , it worked Haha , now i can go to school !
Worked Instantly! Wow! Thank You So Much!
incredible! worked like a charm!
My right eyelid has been occasionally twitching for the past month. If I tried hard enough, I could stop the twitch, but without my intervention it will automatically twitch, almost like breathing if you will.
Not only that, but sometimes when I am walking my right eye will begin to tear up, even to the point that it looks like I was just crying. I was not walking in the wind or anything like that either.
The last symptom I have had is a runny nose. I’ll scratch my nose and feel a wet droplet that is so heavy compared to anything I’ve felt before that it makes me assume I have a nosebleed every time.
I believe the culprit is my newly prescribed adhd medication. I take 50mg of vyvanse in the morning, along with 20mg adderall ir in the afternoon. Just in case any visitors are on stimulant medication, you aren’t alone.
I started this exercise and it seems that it immediately made the twitch less severe. It still happens but it seems frequency has been greatly reduced. It may be placebo affect, but I suppose I will find out for sure in a few days. Thanks for this article, and I’ll be sure tell friends/family
Hi my penis has been twitching like crazy everytime i stick it in my mouth it stops my anus is gappind
I love to eat my own shit tastes real good
i was cooking my own shit
Yup it worked. Thanks. Bababooey
Good stuff! Ty ty!
Thanks Sarah! This worked right away for my upper eyelid twitch. Wonderful. I will continue the next few days! Thanks again!
After one week of almost constant twitching I woke up today and it was gone! I massaged the points twice last night. Thank you so much!
That was some of the best medical advice! i have had that damn twitch for a few months now, i am at work and could only rub a few minutes , but its been twenty since and no more freakin twitch, damn that was annoying. Again thank you.
My top eye lid has been twitching for 6 weeks now, I allways grind my teeth ive just massaged my inner gums and iys stopped, Must be working thanks
Thank you Sooooooooooo much…..top left eye was twitching for 6 weeks, got worse and worse this week…….didn’t want to go to doctor….I do grind my teeth at night says my boyfriend….came across your article and did what you said…was surprised it worked straight away….had zingy spots only on the side of my eye with the twitch….yesterday I only had 2 twitches after your treatment when I had heaps the day before, today i haven’t had any!!! Feels like a miracle….still cant really believe I fixed it myself, just with your help and my finger!!! Amazing….Thank you so so so much….
Didn’t help. I think I’m gonna go crazy! I feel like crying. I’ve got enough of this twitching now, and nothing seems to be helping!
I’m a bit shocked, I didn’t expect that to help so quickly. My lower left eyelid has been twitching for about 3 weeks, despite regular sleep and a healthy diet and exercise. I’ve been browsing the internet and came across this, and it actually relieved the twitch right away. It came back a few minutes after I stopped massaging, but she said it takes a few days, so I’m going to keep trying.
Thanks!
My right eyelid has been twitching for weeks. I work on computers all day so thought that was it and took breaks away from my desk for hopes that it would solve the issue but it didn’t.
Tried this while my eyelid was twitching like crazy and the moment I started doing this. It stopped.
My left eyelid has been twitching for at least 4 months. I thought that I had dry-eye, allergies or maybe needed a new glasses prescription. I also have been experiencing a lot of stresses in my career and home life (my husband is finishing his doctoral thesis) –
I’m so glad I found this trigger-point technique – tried it last night and although I did not quite feel the “zingers” I worked with the sorest points and got instant relief – I can hardly believe it!!
Thank you so much! I will not forget this – so simple!
Thank you so much!! My lower left eyelid has been twitching consistently for about six months
now. I was beginning to think this was something I was going to have to live with for the rest of
my life :’( I know I grind my teeth at night, now I’m wondering why I do that?! The twitch
developed due to stress back in November, since then I have got glasses because I wear contacts. I love coffee & tea also so I’ve been wondering if that has something to do with it.
It is now May and I just read this passage and did the massage and it hasn’t twitched once since!!
Hit there did you ever hear back from Justin?, I grind and have invisi lign… I had a mucous cyst in my mouth, in the back by this muscle you describe, I had it surgically removed and ever since I have an eyelid twitch on that same side!! I am going to try this technique and hope to stop the twitch!!