Left side facial muscle twitching

In daily life, some people experience twitching of the left or right side of their face muscles. However, most people don't quite know what causes this. If the facial muscles only twitch occasionally, it's not a big problem and there's no need to worry. But if facial muscle twitching occurs frequently, we must pay great attention to it, because it is likely a manifestation of hemifacial spasm.

1. What causes facial muscle twitching?

1. The facial nerve throbbing occurs because the blood vessels exiting the brainstem are compressed. Such as compression by the posterior inferior cerebellar artery, anterior inferior cerebellar artery, vertebral nerve artery, and occasionally compression of the facial nerve root due to aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, or brain tumor.

2. Some facial muscle twitching is caused by some systemic diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. Of course, there are some familial cases of facial muscle twitching. The cause and mechanism are still not very clear at present. Some relevant experts speculate that it is related to genetics.

3. Spasm of the affected side muscles caused by trauma, tumor or surgery. It is possible that a short circuit occurs between the facial nerve and other cranial nerves during its recovery process, and when other nerves are excited, twitching of the facial muscles on one side may also occur.

4. Yin deficiency or physical weakness and qi deficiency lead to Yin deficiency, blood deficiency, malnutrition of tendons and veins, or wind and cold disturbing the face. The disease is located in the facial yang meridians and is related to the liver, spleen, kidney, gallbladder, stomach, and internal organs; the disease can be either deficiency or excess.

5. Some kind of compression causes pathological interference in the conduction of the facial nerve. In most patients, it is caused by cross compression of normal blood vessels.

6. Idiopathic facial nerve paralysis, with secondary facial muscle spasm occurring after recovery. It may be that facial neuritis causes pathological changes in nerve demyelination and fails to return to normal. It forms an epileptic lesion and produces paroxysmal twitching of facial muscles.

7. The mass itself is caused by abnormal blood vessels, such as arteriovenous malformation, meningioma or aneurysm. A space-occupying lesion in the posterior cranial fossa, such as a Schwann cell tumor of the intermediate nerve, compresses the facial nerve and causes facial muscle twitching.

2. What is hemifacial spasm

Since the initial symptom of hemifacial spasm is eyelid twitching, and there is a saying among the people that "left eye twitching means wealth, right eye twitching means disaster", people generally do not take it seriously. After a period of time, it develops into hemifacial spasm, which affects the corners of the mouth and, in severe cases, the neck. Hemifacial spasm can be divided into two types: primary hemifacial spasm and secondary hemifacial spasm, which is the hemifacial spasm caused by the sequelae of facial paralysis. The two types can be distinguished by symptoms. Primary facial spasm can also occur in a static state, and the spasm will be relieved after a few minutes and is uncontrollable; the facial spasm caused by sequelae of facial paralysis only occurs during actions such as blinking and raising eyebrows.