In modern medicine, there is no cure for blepharospasm. But there are ways to manage the symptom. The most common one is the botulinum toxin injection. Ever heard of botox? People take botox injection for beauty purposes. But for blepharospasm patients, it is a live saver. Unfortunately, it is not the case for me.
Remember that blepharospasm means your eyelid muscle is too active that it squeezes a lot until you cannot open your eyelid in a normal way. So injecting botox around the eyelids will help to weaken the muscles around the eyes. After a few days, it will help the person to be able to open their eyes more comfortably. The botox effectiveness usually last for 3 months. Hence, after 3 months, the patient should take another shot. That is basically the lifecycle. So every 3 months, you need to see your doctor to have the injection. If your effectiveness last earlier that 3 months, you still need to wait until 3 months for the next shot to ensure that the botox has fully worn off from your body.
Now the problem is every person is not the same in terms of the amount of botox and the pattern of injection. The doctor must be very expert and experienced to guess the right pattern for the patients. Even so, there is no guarantee. So it is a trial and error. Based on my reading on the internet and support groups, there are people who are very lucky to get the positive result the first time. But mostly they found the right pattern after 2 or 3 times. There are also patients who waited until 5th time. But there are also patients who have tried many times and finally have to accept the fact that botox is not for them.
I think I am one of them. I have taken botox for 4 times. That is equivalent to one year period. (You can only retry after 3 months). Each time, my effectiveness only lasted for 1-2 weeks. My doctor said, there is no point to continue if it does not help me. So that is the end of me visiting my neurologist.
But I am still hopeful. There are other alternatives that I can try.
No comments:
Post a Comment