There’s a fine line between folk remedy and self-inflicted injury, and Mr. Le from Wuhan in China’s Hubei province learned that lesson the hard way.
For days, Le’s right eye had been twitching—a frustrating, involuntary twitch that drove him to try everything from warm compresses to frantic internet searches. And that’s where things took a turn. According to Chinese culture, a twitching right eye signals bad luck, and as Le’s anxiety spiraled, so did his willingness to believe that an online suggestion might actually work: slap the eye to stop the twitching.
So that’s what he did. For three days straight, Le repeatedly slapped his right eye and the surrounding area, convinced he was warding off disaster. The twitching did eventually stop—mission accomplished, right? Wrong. What followed was far worse than any superstition could have predicted. His vision narrowed dramatically until he could see only straight ahead, his peripheral vision on both sides completely gone. Doctors quickly diagnosed Mr. Le with retinal detachment, scheduling emergency surgery to save his sight.
The irony is crushing: Le’s attempt to prevent bad luck created exactly the kind of catastrophe he was trying to avoid. But here’s the silver lining—and the reason this story matters beyond the obvious cautionary tale. After surgery, Le recovered his vision, and doctors expect him to make a full recovery. He got lucky, even after making one of the unluckiest decisions imaginable.
The real lesson here isn’t about whether superstitions work. It’s about the gap between belief and action. A twitching eye is annoying. Eye strain happens. Sometimes our bodies do weird things that pass on their own. But when anxiety meets misinformation and the internet enables impulsive desperation, even the most ridiculous solution can suddenly seem reasonable—right up until you’re in an emergency room explaining to a surgeon why you’ve been repeatedly hitting yourself in the face.
Le’s story is a reminder that sometimes the best remedy for worry is patience, not panic. And if you ever find yourself searching the internet for ways to solve a minor bodily quirk, maybe take a step back before you act.
