Hello to everyone here, I would like to say, I have taught Karate for 43 years, and last Sat. June 25th I was stricken with BP while eating out with my wife! In the middle of the meal I suddenly realized I could not chew my food! And it got worse, by 9pm that evening I was having trouble moving my left arm and leg, so I naturally thought I was
having a stroke~!! It was scary, but since it was late and I was 20 miles from the nearest ER. I decided to sleep. Next morning my arm and leg was OK, but I couldn't move my mouth on left side or close my eye, so I went to ER and they did a CAT scan and told me it was NOT a stroke, but Bell's P. I had never even heard that term before last Sunday! But since then I have found out a lot of people I know have had some form of it! To my surprise, even my Mom had a mild form of it when she was 15 years old. The big problem for 'me' with this is chewing food and drinking things. And I had a lot of eye pain, watering, and strain in left eye. That was the first 3 days, but now the eye problem has let up greatly. Still can't close it, but have figured out how to deal with it. Now I studied Oriental Med. for 4 years over seas, and have found that a small electronic Stimulator on light setting applied to left side of my face is helping me to recover much faster than nine months! hopefully I will be fully recovered in from 9 weeks to 29 weeks. This is only a estimation of course. I will be happy to keep you all updated if you wish!
I find it very difficult to keep up teaching Karate with this problem, but as someone else has said, most people are very understanding, and so are my students. They seem to continue to work well with me, in spite of my twisted face and muffled speech!! Of course I am grateful to them for their understanding!
I do believe the facial massage of the stimulator is making this better at a much greater rate than most reports I have read about thus far! Please feel free to ask me questions if you wish, I will do my best to answer anything I can!
Thanks: