In life, many people have experienced eyelid fluttering or twitching at the corners of the mouth. Eyelid twitching is mostly found in the upper eyelid and sometimes in the lower eyelid and is not controlled by the person’s mind or consciousness. Twitching at the corners of the mouth is more common on the right side, but it can also occur on the left side. Eyelid jumping or corner of the mouth twitching is divided into physiological and psychological, the former usually passes quickly and sometimes lasts for a few days, while the latter is more serious and develops progressively. It is often said that “the left eye jumps for money, the right eye jumps for disaster”, so the eyelid jumping will make many people worry. But doctors don’t think so.
“The eyelid jumping is actually a sign of increased nerve excitement. I have also experienced this, and medicine does not believe in these folk sayings.” The doctor introduced to that both eyelid jumping and mouth corner twitching are disorders of the facial nerve, clinically diagnosed as facial muscle spasm. The twitching of the corner of the mouth muscle is the most noticeable, and in severe cases, it can even involve the ipsilateral broad neck muscle, but the frontal muscle is less involved.
Facial muscle twitches or clonic facial muscle spasms are episodes of painless contraction of the muscles innervated by the facial nerve.
The first symptom: it starts from a slight tremor of the orbicularis oculi muscle of the lower lid and gradually extends upward to all the orbicularis oculi muscle and then to the lower half of the facial muscles, especially the corners of the mouth.
In severe cases, the whole facial muscles and the ipsilateral broad neck muscles can spasm, and when the orbicularis oculi muscle is in severe spasm, the eyes cannot be opened, thus affecting walking and work, and can be accompanied by mild weakness and muscle atrophy. The spasm may be aggravated by mental stress, fatigue and voluntary movement, and disappears during sleep. Facial muscle twitches are not associated with pain, and random contraction of facial muscle is generally unaffected during non-facial muscle twitches. The etiology of facial twitches is not clear and may be caused by ectopic excitation of the facial nerve or pseudo-synaptic transmission. Occasionally, it is due to compression of the facial nerve root by an aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, or brain tumor. Very few patients present with twitching of the affected facial muscles after trauma, tumor or surgery.
Treatment of twitching of the orofacial muscles: Facial muscle twitching can be treated by medication in the early stage. Another approach is nerve trunk block therapy or surgical treatment with open surgery to perform decompression of the facial nerve canal. Recently, with the development of the discipline, experts have tried to perform radiofrequency thermocoagulation on the branches of the facial nerve, which has achieved good therapeutic results.
In conclusion, once the twitching of the orofacial muscles appears, it usually does not improve naturally if not given treatment, and the twitching of the orofacial muscles will gradually occur more frequently and last longer, which seriously affects the patient’s work and life, and even physical and mental health. Without treatment, some patients may develop facial muscle paralysis (facial palsy) after several years of facial muscle spasm.