Fek!

Well, that sucks. I wish there was something I could do...

At 12th Night, have Bob tell you the story of the time I had a reaction to meds -- the day before my in-laws were coming for our first Thanksgiving together! Embarassing, but really funny...

Feel better soon.

Sympathies, m'dear. I have *one* eyelid that has been twitching on and off for the past two days, and I'm not on meds. Maybe I ought to be. %-S

I think mine's a lack of sleep and stress, with everything else on top. :)

If you want a pharmaceutical review, just drop me an email...

OK. :) Just thought I'd offer. I hope you feel better.

eithni is better qualified than I am to offer analysis, but here's some info:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a605045.html

Lyrica is a relatively new medication, so the information distributed by or paid for by the drug company is much of what is currently available. Lyrica has relatively common reports of muscle twitching, weakness, and jerking and a wide variety of vision changes, but I don't know if there are any specific eye-muscle twitch reports. I'll run a literature search tomorrow, but often "weird" side effects don't show up in the literature until there has been significant experience with a new drug and people report the less common side effects to their MDs or better yet, the FDA. That said, it's not a side effect I'm surprised by, just the potential twitchiness manifesting in a slightly odd place.

In this case, though, you sort of luck out because there is a drug with a very similar method of action that has been on the market for a long time - Neurontin or gabapentin - that you can also use as a source of potential information. The drugs are not _exactly_ the same, so you have to be careful about extrapolating information, but the actions and side effects are similar. On the other hand, I'm not aware of specific eye-muscle twitching with gabapentin either.

Some of the other side effects you mention - clumsiness, walking into walls, etc - are definitely side effects of Lyrica, et al. If you think about it, most of the side effects make sense. Lyrica does not relieve pain by blocking pain receptors like narcotics do, but rather mucks with the brain chemistry and changes how the nerves signal each other. This is why it works on nerves that have gone haywire (neuropathies and epilepsy), but any time you tinker with nerve conduction, other nerves are affected and can cause somewhat unexpected neurological changes. (For instance, it makes most people sleepy, but other people get a "high" from Lyrica.)

If you want to report this specific side effect, there is a system in place called the Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) where you can submit a MedWatch report. (http://www.fda.gov/CDER/aers/default.htm) However, since I see you say you are also over-tired, and stress and/or lack of sleep is a major source of these sorts of eye twitches, you may want to try to get a good night's sleep (er, at this point I hope you are GETTING a good night's sleep) and see how the twitching responds. If it is improved in the morning, it's more likely to be sleep-related than drug-related. Just like you can't fix everything with a drug (dammit) sometimes the drug isn't the cause of a new "side effect."

do feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions and I'll poke around the medical literature tomorrow to see if I can find anything specific.

"I'm okay with discussing it publicly; there are some of my readers who are curious about the drug, and if I can discuss it openly, they might be interested. :)"

As one of those folks, thank you VERY much for this!! :)

I hate when the eyelids twitch. Still haven't found a remedy for it. If I did, I'd pass the info on. Hope you feel better soon!

Or you're really stressed. :) But more sleep is always good!!!

My brother has turrets syndrome (he's actually out grown a lot of it post puberty, damn hormones) and while I don't have full on turrets I have a few odd twitches. My left eyebrow goes every now and then and my left butt cheek will twitch, luckily no ones ever noticed that one...

Argh, twitching eyelids drives me INSANE.

Walking into walls sounds less than fun too.

I missed tonight too, but a sore throat and a lack of willingness to share is what kept me home.

Glad youre feeling better. My eyelid did the twitchy thing for about two weeks straight my senior year in HS. I was told it was stress.
If you continue walking into walls let us know, we can always make you a nose guard and get you some football pads. ;) Too cute!

The eyelid twitch thing is stress related (as others have noted). I developed a bad case of it about six years ago when I was working as a freelance web application developer working on a project for a "client from hell." Had that dratted twitch for well over a year - the duration of the project. Now, I only get it when I'm really stressed about something. For me, it's not just the upper eyelid, but the lower as well - on the left eye.

The more you stress about the twitch, the worse it gets. If you can, just get yourself a nice hot cuppa, wrap up (since it's still cold out) in a nice warm fuzzy and try to relax. If you fall asleep, so much the better. Just make sure you're not still holding the full cuppa. ;)

Try some regular over-the-counter magnesium supplements. It can work miracles both for twitching and if you get muscle cramps. It's worth a shot!