I've been having weird muscle spasms around my eyes...

[chickenpatty]

for the past several months. It is a very slight sensation that lasts about 3 seconds & feels as if my left eyelid is being pulled down and my right eyelid is being pulled to the side. It is unnoticeable to people around me unless they happened to be studying my face right before and while it is happening.

 

It comes and goes, but for the past couple of days, it has been happening frequently (like a 3-4 times an hour, maybe?).

 

I haven't been consuming anymore caffeine than usual (a big cup in the morning) and no more stressed than I usually am. Dh wants me to call the doctor today & get it checked out. I will, but I wondered if anyone here might have any ideas. I hate going to the doctor - it seems like all my medical issues are vague & the doctor must think I'm a hypochondriac.

[Pippen]

I'd try cutting out the caffeine totally. It eventually caught up with me and I had to cut it completely if I wanted to be rid of the twitching.

[RegGuheert]

Eye spasms can also be a symptom of ingesting MSG. I can get these if I have a large dose of MSG. While I also get a headache, not everyone experiences the same set of symptoms from MSG exposure.

 

You may want to look at this list of ingredients and see if you have been eating any foods that have some of these ingredients on their label. Ingredients are listed on food labels in order of decreasing quantity, so I would be particularly suspicious of anything from this list which is higher in the list of ingredients.

 

Good luck finding the source of your problem!

[chickenpatty]

Wow... this is not good! My beloved french vanilla coffee creamer has a couple of those ingredients. Oh dear...

[RegGuheert]

Wow... this is not good! My beloved french vanilla coffee creamer has a couple of those ingredients. Oh dear...

Unfortunately, you will find this stuff is in many, many foods. That said, while MSG is a toxin for everyone, not everyone has symptoms when they are exposed to it. The only way I know to find out if you are symptomatic is to suspend eating these ingredients and see if the symptoms go away. Please note that it may take as long as two days for the symptoms to subside.

 

Good luck!

[Perry]

That said, while MSG is a toxin for everyone,

:confused:

 

What do you mean by this?

[RegGuheert]

:confused:

 

What do you mean by this?

Just that: MSG is a neurotoxin. It is not an allergen as many believe.

[Gratia271]

So, what do you do if you need the whey protein isolate nutrition shakes?

[RegGuheert]

So, what do you do if you need the whey protein isolate nutrition shakes?

:D

 

For someone like me "whey protein isolate" equals headache, so I find that I can forgo a lot of foods.

 

I do believe that I was NOT sensitive to MSG when I was younger, but too many visits to a cheap Chinese restaurant near where I used to work has changed all of that.

[cillakat]

for the past several months. It is a very slight sensation that lasts about 3 seconds & feels as if my left eyelid is being pulled down and my right eyelid is being pulled to the side.

 

Magnesium deficiency.

 

K

[Perry]

Just that: MSG is a neurotoxin. It is not an allergen as many believe.

Maybe in high doses, but I don't agree that it's a neurotoxicant* at normal doses found in foods. Lots of things we normally ingest (alcohol, tylenol, table sugar, certain minerals, caffeine, etc.) are neurotoxicants at high doses, but they are perfectly safe, sometimes even necessary, at normal levels.

 

*ETA:

toxin: a poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism.

 

toxicant: a toxic agent, usually one produced by human-made activity, such as pesticide.

 

Although strictly speaking toxin should be used only for biologically produced substances and not as a synonym for toxic or toxicant, popular usage interchanges the terms. A toxic agent is anything that can produce an adverse biological effect.

 

All toxins are toxicants. Not all toxicants are toxins.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Perry
corrected my sloppy terminology

[RegGuheert]

Maybe in high doses, but I don't agree that it's a neurotoxin at normal doses found in foods.

Believe what you will.

 

From MSG and Aspertame Neurotoxic Potential:

MSG & Aspartate Cause Brain Damage

Following A Single Low Level Dose

 

 

To determine at what level the food additives MSG and Aspartate could cause brain lesions, it was given to a group of 75 infant mice starting at the very low "normal human exposure levels" of .25-.50 g/kg (grams of MSG per kilogram of animal body weight) upwards to 2 g/kg. In each case only a single dose of the compound was given. Five hours after MSG and Aspartate treatment each animal was anaesthetized and examinations were performed on the brain cells within the hypothalamus using a light microscope. The results showed that only the very lowest .25 g/kg level had no harmful observable effect upon the brain cells. Of the twenty-three animals given .5 g/kg doses of MSG, twelve (52%) suffered hypothalamic damage; and of sixteen animals treated at .75 g/kg, thirteen (81%) were affected. Nineteen animals (100%) treated at 1g/kg and seven (100%) treated with 2 g/kg developed lesions in the part of the hypothalamus known as the arcuate nucleus.

 

 

 

Please note that in the above study, which was done in 1970, 0.5 g/kg was considered a "normal human exposure level", yet a *single* exposure at that level resulted in brain lesions 5 hours later in 52% of the mice.

 

According to this site, our exposure level to MSG in 2010 should be about 16 times what it was in 1970:

the amount of MSG added to our processed foods has doubled every 10 years since 1945

Also:

Most of us ingest more MSG than we realize or than the FDA and researchers regard as safe

On top of this, some people believe that *some* of the effects of MSG exposure are cumulative. Edited April 14, 2010 by RegGuheert

[RegGuheert]

*ETA:

toxin: a poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism.

 

toxicant: a toxic agent, usually one produced by human-made activity, such as pesticide.

 

Although strictly speaking toxin should be used only for biologically produced substances and not as a synonym for toxic or toxicant, popular usage interchanges the terms. A toxic agent is anything that can produce an adverse biological effect.

 

All toxins are toxicants. Not all toxicants are toxins.

Thanks! I did not know that. Still, the label "toxin" may be correct for MSG, since glutamic acid is one of the 20 amino acids produced naturally withing living things. The difficulty comes in the fact that amino acids in life are all left-handed: L-glutamic acid, which is typically bound to proteins in the body. When glutamic acid is produced in chemical processes, you get right-handed D-glutamic acid, which is also known as free glutamic acid, and does not participate in in life in the same ways as L-glutamic acid. There is still a question about whether having too many of the natural L-glutamic acids causes a problem. Does that make it a toxicant? Perhaps. Edited April 14, 2010 by RegGuheert

[Perry]

Believe what you will.

 

From MSG and Aspertame Neurotoxic Potential:Please note that in the above study, which was done in 1970, 0.5 g/kg was considered a "normal human exposure level", yet a *single* exposure at that level resulted in brain lesions 5 hours later in 52% of the mice.

1. I looked for the original article, and there isn't one. The closest I can come is this:

Brain Damage in Infant Mice following Oral Intake of Glutamate, Aspartate or Cysteine

JOHN W. OLNEY & OI-LAN HO

Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri 63110.

STRIKING degenerative changes in the infant mouse retina after subcutaneous treatment with monosodium glutamate (MSG) were reported by Lucas and Newhouse in 19571. Other studies2−6 established that the process of retinal degeneration induced by MSG treatment is a remarkably acute and irreversible form of neuronal pathology. Recently it was found that a similar process of acute neuronal necrosis occurs in several regions of the infant mouse brain after subcutaneous treatment with MSG, and that animals treated with high doses in infancy tend to manifest obesity and neuroendocrine disturbances as adults7,8. The arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus is an area particularly vulnerable to glutamate induced damage in infant animals of several species (mice and rats7, rabbits and chicks and the rhesus monkey9). In mice, which have been studied more extensively for MSG induced disturbances than other species, the infant animal suffered hypothalamic damage from a relatively low subcutaneous dose (0.5 g/kg of body weight)7.

References 1. Lucas, D. R., and Newhouse, J. P., Amer. Med. Assoc. Arch. Ophthal., 58, 193 (1957). 2. Potts, A. M., Modrell, K. W., and Kingsbury, C., Amer. J. Ophthal., 50, 900 (1960). 3. Freedman, J. K., and Potts, A. M., Invest. Ophthal., 1, 118 (1962). 4. Freedman, J. K., and Potts, A. M., Invest. Ophthal., 2, 252 (1963). 5. Cohen, A. I., Amer. J. Anat., 120, 319 (1967). 6. Olney, J. W., J. Neuropath. Exp. Neurol., 28, 455 (1969). 7. Olney, J. W., Science, 164, 719 (1969). 8. Redding, T. W., and Schally, A. V., Fed. Proc., 29, 755 (1970). 9. Olney, J. W., and Sharpe, L. G., Science, 166, 386 (1969). 10. Gerber Products, Inc., Hearings before the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs of the US Senate, 13A, 4170 (July 1969). 11. Lowe, C. U., Science, 167, 1016 (1970). 12. Blood, F. R., Oser, B. L., and White, P. L., Science, 165, 1028 (1969). 13. Curtis, D. R., and Crawford, J. M., Ann. Rev. Pharm., 9, 209 (1969).

2. The excerpt you cite is for MSG + Aspartate. You can't draw conclusions about MSG alone if it isn't given alone.

3. It was given subcutaneously. You can't draw conclusions about oral MSG based on an experiment where it is given by a different route. You can generate a hypothesis, but you have to test it. I don't see that that was done.

4. They used infant mice. You can't conclude that MSG is a neurotoxicant for all people based on an infant mouse model.

5. They used mice. Mice may or may not be a good animal model for humans. I don't know if they are. But you can't necessarily conclude that human adverse effects will be the same as mouse (especially infant mouse) effects.

6. That is 40 years old. You'd think if there was good evidence they'd have something a little newer.

[Perry]

More...

J Nutr. 2000 Apr;130(4S Suppl):1049S-52S.

The safety evaluation of monosodium glutamate.

 

Walker R, Lupien JR.

School of Biological Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 5XH, Surrey, UK and. Food and Nutrition Division, FAO, 00100 Roma, Italy.

Abstract

 

L-Glutamic acid and its ammonium, calcium, monosodium and potassium salts were evaluated by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) in 1988. The Committee noted that intestinal and hepatic metabolism results in elevation of levels in systemic circulation only after extremely high doses given by gavage (>30mg/kg body weight). Ingestion of monosodium glutamate (MSG) was not associated with elevated levels in maternal milk, and glutamate did not readily pass the placental barrier. Human infants metabolized glutamate similarly to adults. Conventional toxicity studies using dietary administration of MSG in several species did not reveal any specific toxic or carcinogenic effects nor were there any adverse outcomes in reproduction and teratology studies. Attention was paid to central nervous system lesions produced in several species after parenteral administration of MSG or as a consequence of very high doses by gavage. Comparative studies indicated that the neonatal mouse was most sensitive to neuronal injury; older animals and other species (including primates) were less so. Blood levels of glutamate associated with lesions of the hypothalamus in the neonatal mouse were not approached in humans even after bolus doses of 10 g MSG in drinking water. Because human studies failed to confirm an involvement of MSG in "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" or other idiosyncratic intolerance, the JECFA allocated an "acceptable daily intake (ADI) not specified" to glutamic acid and its salts. No additional risk to infants was indicated. The Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) of the European Commission reached a similar evaluation in 1991. The conclusions of a subsequent review by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) did not discount the existence of a sensitive subpopulation but otherwise concurred with the safety evaluation of JECFA and the SCF.

 

[krisperry]

It could be a focal dystonia called blephrospams. I have it. Mine started out of the blue as well:

 

http://www.blepharospasm.org/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blepharospasm

 

http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/blepha/blepharospasm.asp

 

Currently, mine is untreated. My eye doc said that once it gets to the point where it is extremely bothersome, then we will look into Botox to control it. :001_huh: I mean I get it... paralyze the muscle but I never thought I would be one to be getting botoxed :tongue_smilie: