Blepharospasm Bulletin Board

You ask 'eye drops and mask--is this only for dry eyes or does it help with blinking and eye closure'.

Those issues—dry eye and blinking and eye closure—are usually connected.

Dry eye is a big trigger for blinking. When you have Botox and it is working, it feels as if your eyes are completely closed, as tightly as they once were, but they're not.

The point is for Botox to weaken the muscles that cause blinking and spasming and eye closure: so if Botox kicks in and is doing that, the muscles are weaker when you close your eyes at night.

When you sleep, your eyes won't be as tightly sealed as they once were, so then it's even easier for your eyes to dry out (you can't put in drops while you're sleeping).

You can start having dry eye even if your eyes don't feel 'dry', and before you feel any irritation and so on.

I would suggest you at least use drops (single-use vials, without preservative) in the daytime. It seems, from discussions on this board, that many (most?) of us use something thicker at night as well, an ointment or something like GenTeal Gel, along with a mask as well; but as far as I know we've not done a formal survey.

Have you read about dry eye in the information on the BEBRF site?

Take care, please protect your eyes, and please post about how you are doing!