Myokmia

Myokmia is an involuntary and continuous Myoclonus (muscle twitch) that affects the muscles of the face, particularly the eyelids, as a result of the random firing of neurons leading into the muscle fibres. It is mainly caused by a lack of sleep, or increased intake of nicotine, caffeine, or by stress. However, Myokmia can also on rare occasions be a pathognomonic symptom of lesions on the brain stem, multiple sclerosis or pontine glioma. [Sharma RR, Mathad NV, Joshi DN, Mazarelo TB, Vaidya MM. "Persistent facial myokymia: A rare pathognomic physical sign of intrinsic brain-stem lesions: report of 2 cases and review of literature"] However, these causes are extremely rare, with only 2 out of 132 cases of Myokmia diagnosed at Seth G.s. Medical College in Bombay being caused by such lesions. [Tharakan J, Bhatia R. "Continuous hemiacial spasm in cerebello-pontine angle tumours" Neurol India 1981]

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