My hemifacial spams are gone without surgery!

I started with my HFS about 15 years ago. It started the usual way and continued until my eye would close and the whole left side of my face would spasm. I tried the Botox - it worked a little for about 3 months, then the spasms went back to the usual frequency. I was also advised of the surgery but it sounded too risky at the time so I didn't go for that. One summer, about 12 years ago, I decided to try drinking soy milk because I thought it would be a healthier alternative to milk. After about 1 1/2 months, my husband noticed that my face wasn't twitching as much as usual. There was no explanation other than the soy milk. Nothing else had changed in my diet, medicine or activity. So I continued with the soy milk and the spasms stopped completely. I haven't done any studies on the chemical makeup of soy milk that might give an explanation for this result. I do know that it is an ongoing treatment, not a cure. I drink about 1/2 C. of soy milk every day and there is no evidence of the spasms at all. Most people have no idea that I've ever had them. I can go for a few days without soy milk without a problem, but if I go too long it will start coming back. If it were a universal treatment, I am sure I would have heard about it somewhere, but I never have. Perhaps it will only work for some people and not others. Perhaps it will just help make the spasms less bothersome. All I know is it completely works for me so I thought it was time I shared my experience. Hopefully it can help someone else!

Daniel, 

Thanks so much for your post, it gave me hope when I first read it and I was trying to figure out what was happening to me. I am writing this in the hope it gives others hope or a new direction to look too. So when I was 39 I went through a really stressful program with work and my eye started to twitch slightly, I didn't even notice but other people around me did. 2 months later, it was becoming noticeable to me, to where at times I couldn't control it at all. In the span of 4 months I would really bad days where it was constantly twitching and days where it wasn't as bad and finally where it would fully close. It was my left eye and I found sensory tricks like chewing, biting on a popsicle stick, or massaging behind my ear or covering the other eye. I went to an eye dr., who told me I was just getting old, I asked for a referral anyway, to an ocular surgeon that diagnosed me with hemifacial spasm. They started botox, and it only worked for a day, they increased the  dosage of botox with more shots and the other eye started closing. The Dr. and I were confused.  The botox didn't work at all , I had super high eyebrow on one side and a droopy eye on the other, it was almost worse than before.  After 3 times of botox injections on both eyes and miserable results, I decided to try accupucture, almost right away my left eye (that had returned to twitching) became better, so I started going weekly. It definitely helped but it wasn't resolved and I was desperate for a cure. I started to try everything I read about, I heard about a dental Dr. that used mouth appliance to stop twitching and went to him.  He used a lot of testing, but it was the tensing that he used during the test that really change things for me. After the 1sts  tensing session (electrode therapy), to relax my jaw muscles, my twitching almost disappeared. I had a open eye again. He was convinced a mouth piece would relax my jaw muscles and put things back in alignment and stop the twitching.   I spent 3k on the mouth appliance, but in the time it took to make it , I was already doing much better. He also recommened I go to a dr. that specialized in neck bones.... He found that my neck bones had a trama that was severely pushing onmy nerves and not allowing blood flow, he started slow adjustments and it started helping. I also started using eye tape on my lids and that also helped a great deal (it helped my eyes look normal, as now my left eye lid is much more droopy than my right now and the tape balances them out). I found a big trigger was talking as well, the more I talked the more my eye closed, that is why we though this was related to my jaw.  So if you try botox and it doesn't work for you, don't go straight to the MVD surgery, look into a dental Dr. that does a mouth appliance for movement disorders, or a specialst for upper cervical chiropractic. I remember reading that this was permanent and for me it wasn't because it wasn't hemi facial spasm and you could possibly be misdiagnosed too. Praying for all of you that deal with this nightmare, as a working mom with a young child,this affected every part of my life and I know how hard it is going through it. 

Thanks everyone for this info.  Our son who is 5 was born with HFS.  All the doctors the first couple years said he would grow out of it.  Well he is 5 now and nothing has changed and we really don't think he will grow out of it so we are looking for other options.  We did a little bit of botox when he was 4 but you can't expect a 4 year old to sit and do botox.  We did acupuncture as well as took several medicines but no luck.  One thing we have occasionally noticed is some days he will go a few hours without a spasm.  We are trying to figure out what may be slowing them down on these occasions since they normally happen every couple minutes.  Anyway, glad I found this site and will try some of your recommendations. 

Hi My name is Vivian. Would you mind telling me, when you said you had slight eye twitching at the beginning, how long did that last you before moving down to other parts of your face? Did the eye twitching ever go dormant for a period of time once it started? Thank you. Your input is very impotant to me.

Hello daniel76862,

Are you still symptoms free?

Thanks!!

Hi Dan, congratulations and thank you for sharing this, it gives me hope. I will start taking the supplements and see what happens. Are you still free of spasms? please let us know.

Hi, happy for you. Mine has also stopped. I have had it for at least 15 yrs, I am now 56. I also went for Botox treatments that worked to control the twitching (pretty much), but like you, I could hear it and still sort of felt it in my cheek even though my husband could not always see it. Luckily I only had to go every 8-9 months or so. I never booked my appts in advance, I always waited til the twitch slightly started again, then I would book. My Dr. always said I was lucky, most people had to go every 3-4 months. My last appt was June 2019, so I should have been ready to go again around Feb or March 2020 - beginning of COVID. It's now Mar 2021 and I still haven't had to go. At first I was concerned, I wondered if something else was going on that was stopping the twitch. I called my Dr and he told me that sometimes it stops for a period of time, and that I should call him when I need him. I get the feeling he meant once it returns again, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll never need to see him again. I hope you continue to be symptom free.