Frequent blinking - a tic? A little freaked.

[KBecks]

Alek has been blinking kind of hard, it looks like a tic, since about Friday. I've been so far thinking it's just a tired thing as he's been waking up early and not napping. It's a little unsettling to see him blink -- think I Dream of Jeanie blinks -- (I'm OLD, people, OLD!!!)

OK, so he's been doing this 4 days now, not frequently but it's not going away. He has also been more crabby than usual but I'm attributing that to not so hot sleeping as well.

Anyone experience this? Do I need to call the pediatrician? Can I relax?

[randomkid]

No personal experience, but a friend was just last week telling me a story about when her DS was little. He started blinking a lot (and hard like you describe). She took him to the eye doctor thinking it was his vision, but his vision was fine. Turns out that one of his little friends at school had just gotten glasses and was blinking like that during his adjustment period. My friend's DS was just mimicking the boy. Any possibility that he is mimicking something? Could he have vision problems? Seems like it could be any number of things. Personally, if I couldn't find some simple explanation, I'd likely call the ped.

[eliasmom]

I have really dry eyes and I blink a lot when they are feeling particularly dry to try to get some relief. Could he have dry eyes? Being inside with a/c on really dries out my eyes. Just a thought.

Also, it sounds like you are describing more of a full blink rather than a tic, but my eyes twitch uncontrollably when I'm really tired. I don't think it looks like a full blink though.

Sorry I don't have anything more helpful than that! Hope it resolves soon.

[rlu]

Not sure if this is your older or younger son. When DS first learned about blinking/winking he would go around blinking at everyone. However, he also told us that is what he was doing "I'm winking". So, it may be he just figured out how to do this.

DS wears glasses - we had no clue he needed them but since I had glasses since 1st grade (eye patch in K) we took him in for a checkup around age 3 and found he needed them. I don't recall him blinking alot before that.

[hillview]

My DS was 2.75 when he started to do this. I asked the pedi who said it could be a lot of things but was likely nothing to worry about. He has since stopped. It was a couple of months that he did this for. Tics I have read are common at around 3 years old.
/hillary

[SummerBaby]

Could it be allergies? My 3.5 yo was doing this in the Spring and it had me freaked out too. I took her to the ped a couple times and he finally concluded she had dry, itchy eyes from allergies and told me to try Zaditor eye drops. They worked almost immediately and she does not do the blinking anymore. Zaditor is OTC, btw and it's approved for 3 year olds.

Val
DD1 7/04
DD2 7/07

[pinkmomagain]

My sister's boys all have transient tics that come and go. The ped doesn't seem too concerned.

[kochh2]

Ds did this when he was a little younger, we had a full developmental optho. eval, which turned out better than 20/20, and it was determined that it was just dry eye-- Maybe the air conditioning is doing it?? for Us, it was the heat, but after the eval, which involved eye dilation, he freaked out about any other drops, making treatment impossible.... he wouldn't let us put anything else in!!

[ThreeofUs]

ITA with PP's on allergies and dry eyes - the crabbiness and sleep problems seem to go along with that. Most times I've seen people do the "IDOJ blink" - and I love this description, btw! - it's to give their eyes a chance to clear.

Will he let you do saline eye drops? Might be worth a try.

[geochick]

My bil has a tic.

I'd contact the ped just to cover yourself. Chances are good that it's nothing, but if it is something, you should be on top of it.

[ctc221]

Sounds exactly like what my DD went through ("I dream of Jeannie" blinks is a good description). She started at around 1.5 y.o. (which I've heard is very early for tics) and it got worse when she was tired, crying, and/or cranky. Assuming everything else is normal, the best advice we got from our ped was to ignore it. Pretend like we don't even see it. Because any reaction from us, even the most subtle ones, can exacerbate the problem. Over the years (she's 6 now), the blinks have slowly subsided, and now I can't even recall the last time I saw her do it.

Sorry you're going through this... I remember being totally freaked out and googling tics and getting more freaked out. Hopefully it's just a phase. Good luck!

[awoodm]

My son started that about 6 months ago, I didn't really think too much of it until it became very frequent. Exact same symptoms though, he was very irritable and became difficult for the baby sitter, which was totally unusual for him. I took him to the dr to have his ears checked for infection and the dr. said that the tics could be caused by the strep virus. He put him on an antibiotic that would clear up the ear infection and strep (JIK). The dr. said a lot of times infection can worsen tics or simply make them appear. After being on the antibiotic the tics almost immediately went away. They haven't come back either. I would def. take him to the dr. just for peace of mind if nothing else. HTH

Anna

[kimbe]

DD went through this a few months ago. Blinking the EXACT same way as your Alek. I too was totally freaked out. It went away as mysteriously as it appeared. I got some great responses when I posted. Try not to worry too much. Hopefully it will pass soon. I know that it drove us crazy!

http://www.windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=286125

[ciaobella]

My DS went through this around 1.5 yo. It only lasted a couple of months, but it was scary, so I totally understand! He got a full neuro work up and they ruled our seizures (he seemed to roll his eyes too after the blink). We discussed that it could be a tick and we kept a diary of each occurrence. We noticed that he was going through a language explosion and it seemed to happen when he was tired and was thinking hard.

Good luck!

[KBecks]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I called the ped office and spoke with the nurse who thought it may be related to strep throat, but Alek hasn't been sick, well, just tired and crabby, so the nurse spoke with a doc who said it's probably a tic, it's unlikely he's always going to have it, and to ignore it. They're sending me an info sheet.

It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one who has experienced this, thanks.

[Karenn]

DS went through a phase like this right at 3 1/2. He called it "bad eyes" and he would do it whenever he was meeting new people. You never can tell when talking with a 3 1/2 year old, but he made it sound like he was doing it on purpose- sort of playing around with his eyes because he didn't like people to look at him. It went away within a month or two.