Deep electrical stimulation for Meijer’s syndrome

Major manifestations of Major’s syndrome include bilateral blepharospasm, submandibular dystonia, and involuntary facial dystonia-like movements. It is common in middle-aged and older women, with bilateral blepharospasm as the first symptom, and ptosis and lid weakness are also common. Some of the symptoms start in one eye and progress to both eyes. Other first symptoms include increased blinking frequency, psychiatric disorders, dental disorders, and dystonia in other areas (mainly in the cranial neck). Blepharospasm improves with sleep, speech, singing, yawning, and mouth opening, and can be triggered or exacerbated by bright light, fatigue, stress, walking, gazing, reading, and watching television. In severe cases, there is even spasm of the neck muscles, leading to difficulty in breathing and swallowing. There is no specific drug treatment for this disease, and Botox treatment only treats the symptoms but not the root cause. Some patients are even misdiagnosed with bilateral facial muscle spasms and undergo bilateral facial nerve vascular decompression. Deep brain electrical stimulation is the most advanced method to treat this disease. By stimulating the corresponding nerve nuclei at high frequency, the nerve circuit and the corresponding transmitters can be adjusted, and a better treatment effect can be achieved. Our department has performed deep electrical stimulation on several patients with Meijer syndrome, and after years of follow-up, we have achieved very good therapeutic results. Typical case: The patient had difficulty opening his eyes and blinking for more than 2 years. The patient had difficulty opening his eyes and blinking for no reason since 2 years ago and was treated with acupuncture, but there was no improvement. Later, his jaw started to twist involuntarily and he would stick out his tongue and lick his lips, pout and bite his lips, etc. Sometimes he would also have dry cough and shortness of breath and sometimes choking cough when eating. The treatment was ineffective, and then deep electrodes were implanted in our hospital, and the symptoms were completely relieved.