Mum who can’t keep her eyes open due to rare condition has Botox to fix it

April 8, 2019  19:29

A MUM who can't keep her eyes open due to a rare condition has had Botox to fix it.

Pauline Williams, from Settle, North Yorkshire, suffers from Meige syndrome - a neurological problem which causes muscles to forcibly contract.

It means the 63-year-old's eyes shut several times a day - and she's unable to open them for hours at a time.

She was given custom-made glasses with special wire clamps for her eyelids but they didn't help, so doctors suggested trying Botox.

The six-weekly course of injections dampen the muscle strength in her eyelids - allowing her to see normally.

Mrs Williams told the Daily Mail: "They could shut at any point – some days I could hardly open them at all.

"There was no knowing when that would happen and it was like a paralysis – I had to physically pull my eyelids open and hold them there."

Mrs Williams was advised by her GP to register as functionally blind and use a white stick.

But she was later diagnosed with a form of Meige syndrome known as blepharospasm, which is an involuntary tight closure of the eyelids affecting just 20 in every million people in the world.

She also has a linked condition called lid apraxia which makes it hard to reopen her eyes once they've closed.

Doctors gave her a pair of glasses with metal clamps to hook onto her eyelids to keep them open.

She said: "It was dreadful and so uncomfortable but I was desperate."

It took months of appointments before Professor Bernie Chang, consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Optegra Eye Hospital Yorkshire, suggested giving Botox injections a go.

Within a few months of altering the dose, she began to make a recovery and she has now been able to return to work and drive again.

Mrs Williams will have to keep having Botox, as well as Parkinson's drugs to control the eye spasms, for the rest of her life.

Source: thesun.co.uk

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