Monday, 10 March 2014

Comparing various options for the treatment of blepharospasm

With the passage of time, slowly and gradually muscles start becoming weak and problems with muscular movements and contractions occur. This causes various ailments and blepharospasm is the one related to eye blinking. It is a disorder that is caused by muscular contraction around the eyes. It might occur in combination with other ailments. Here some noticeable facts about the ailment will be discussed that will help you out finding a proper treatment for blepharospasm.
Like any other medical disorder, blepharospasm might be mild, moderate or severe. It is not a life threatening or disabling disease but if the blinking becomes severe, it might affect your daily tasks. It does not directly affects your eyesight but impairs your vision. Blepharospasm is a chronic condition that starts from mild symptoms and progressively becomes worse. Though there is no permanent solution to cure it but there are excellent options to relieve its symptoms. This condition can get confused with other ailments, so it is important to have a complete know how about the disease before opting out for any treatment.
Blepharospasm is due to the contraction of muscles surrounding the eyes and results in frequent twitching of eyes. And as the time passes, the condition becomes so severe that causes a prolonged closure of eyes even for several hours. The symptoms that help in the diagnosis of disease, as there is no proper test for diagnosis include, irritation and watering in eyes, frequent and involuntary blinking of eyes that becomes forceful and more frequent as ailment progresses. Eyes will become sensitive to bright light and wind.
Let’s see, what possible treatments for blepharospasm are.
The first option is oral medications. As the root cause for the condition is unknown, use of drugs is a shotgun approach. Primarily, a lot of drugs were used to treat the ailment but none of them was much effectual, either patients did not respond to the drugs or had a very little effect. Still now, the success rate of drugs is very less when advancements took place.
Botox is the most effective treatment till now and is a quick but temporary treatment. More than ninety percent of the patients get successful results and have a significant improvement. Botox blocks the nerve endings and this blockage constrains the signals from reaching muscles. The treatment needs to have a few injections around the eyes and botox will show the effects just after the treatment. As botox is the best muscle relaxant, so it is the most efficacious option. Though effects of botox are temporary but having botox again when effects are gone can provide with the continuity in results.
The last option is myectomy, surgery for the removal of some or all the muscles whose movement result in the blinking of eyes. Though it gives permanent results but is least accepted as it involves other risks and complications.

In short, all the treatments come with some pros and cons, it’s up to you to consult an experienced ophthalmologist for selecting the most suitable treatment.

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