Bells Palsy Newcomers recommendations

[Vane91]

Hi I’m 28 and I got diagnosed with BP back in March of 2018 about 2 years ago. It’s hard. Haven’t fully recovered. I’m supposedly 90% recovered. I did acupuncture, and Physical Therapy. I remember the pain. It was horrible, it felt like a cramp that wouldn’t go away for hours. Till this day when I make a certain expression that I have to stretch my mouth like when I cry or smile really big I get a really sharp pain on the infected side and it hurts for seconds.

For those who just got BP I recommend getting the gel for the eye. Eye drops don’t do the job!! I Also recommend to give it time and DON’T try to force it shut. I forced my eye to close when I was on my phone, watching tv or brushing my teeth and now I have a squinty eye. When I eat, smile, or talk my eye gets squinty. Again give yourself time, Keep your eye lubricated with the eye gel, keep it shut and protected and DON’T force your eye shut!! And for Goodness sake find a doctor who knows about BP or who could recommend you to one. STAY POSITIVE!!!!

[FLNJFL]

Hello, I am at the 14 month mark and I am about 70% healed. Could you please share how much recovery happened for you during year one to year two. I wonder how much more recovery I can hope for. I would be so happy to be at 90% to 95% one day, but I have no idea if that’s possible. I haven’t seen anyone talk about their experience past the one year mark.

[Vane91 in reply to FLNJFL]

hi! I don’t feel any more improvements have happened since last year. My eye squints when I eat, smile really big , cry. Pretty much any expression I make. ( my co-worker winks back at me at times because she says I only look like I’m sending some winks lol) I’m also unable to frown or smile properly. The more tired and exhausted I am the smaller my eye gets. I’m going to look into Botox to see if they can do anything about it.

I’m really glad I don’t look like I did in month 2-3 because my eye was open wide. It was emotionally harder then, since I work with kids. Kids can be brutally honest!

I look ok when I’m not making any expressions.

One thing that I felt made me look more normal was loosing weight. My face was chunkier during Bells Palsy and loosing weight I feel helped me to feel and look more like my normal self. I’m still going through pains on my lower head behind my ears.

Can you blink and open your eye normal? Can you semi smile? Why do you feel you only recovered 70%, Is that what the doctor told you?

[FLNJFL in reply to Vane91]

I’m so glad you responded! Thank you

I have been bracing myself for the possibility that I will need to seek a plastic surgeon. There are a few different specialists here in the US that have some pretty good before/afters that give me hope that I will get a proper smile back.

I believe your eye can be helped by Botox. I would just recommend going to someone with lots of experience of course, to be sure you get the best result.

I totally agree with your statement about month 2-3. I must say that I am grateful that I have recovered past that stage. Emotionally it was one of the hardest times for me. It’s still hard now but it’s better now. 70% is my personal estimate. If I divide my face in three parts. Forehead is 100%. Eye are about 80-90% better. Eye 80-90% because if I do big facial movements my eye will get a tiny bit smaller, but it’s very mild. And my eye feels a little bit dryer, but it looks normal. Also, my eye would close up a lot more and move when yawning during months 7-12, but over the past two or three months my eye improved a lot. So there is hope that your eye will get better in time with or without Botox. My cheek is a little better than half improved. My cheek is less fluffy than the other side, but you can’t really tell unless I try to smile. And my smile looks very normal when I do a small smile with my lips closed. But when I try to smile big with teeth the top lip of my affected side doesn’t lift up so smile is crooked.

This is so hard. Everyone would always tell me my smile was one of my best features. It might sound superficial but as we both know it’s so much deeper then that. It’s hard because I feel like I can’t display my true emotions. I don’t smile much anymore because I don’t want to explain “what’s wrong with me”. So I do a little smile and then I look pretty normal.

But on a happy note I really appreciate your comment about losing weight and how that improved your face! I was just talking to my sister earlier today about how I might feel better and would look better if I lost some weight. Hearing you say that must be a sign to bite the bullet and get myself on a diet! I think it would help shift my focus on something I can control much better and will improve my face and my body.

I think I will work on my weight loss for a little while then I will visits a few specialists for consultations. So far I have only gone to the emergency doc when I was diagnosed and then the general doctor for follow ups and they had no solutions.

Please let me know if you decide to do Botox and let me know how it goes!

[FLNJFL in reply to Vane91]

Oh and about my blink. It took 4.5 months to blink. Now at 14 months it’s pretty normal. It slowly got better over time.