OT Bells Palsy

I have not had it first hand, no. But one of my good friends had a co-worker here in town who was healed of it in a month with acupuncture.

Karen, Queen of Squishies

Thanks Karen. I have not heard of that before, unfortunately I don't know of any around here, may be worth looking into.

Dee in Oz

My neighbor's son had Bells Palsy onset at about age 32 or so. This was ten years ago, and he recovered fully, good as new :-) That's all I know about it, but thought that might be encouraging.

Sherry

My Mother had Bells Palsy about five years ago, when she turned 55. While she is pretty much recovered now, she does still have a slight droop on one side of her face and her eye on that particular side has a tendency to be dry. if you have any questions about it, I can certainly ask her for you, Dee.

Gillian > Has anyone had this ?

Thanks Gillian, I will remember that.

An uncle had it about 30 years ago, but I didn't really take a lot of notice at the time. As he must have been in his 60's at the time that must have been where I got the age assumption. DS is 14

I hadn't thought of after affects. At the moment the 'droop' isn't very noticeable which is good.

Dee in Oz

Gillian > Has anyone had this ?

Thanks Jeanne, it does.

DS is in the 'rare' catagory as he is under 15.

He refered to himself as a retard the other day, so I was not impressed.

Dee in Oz

Thanks Sherry, good to know that he is 'good as new'

dee in Oz

Sherry

My dh had that about 15 years ago...and he was advised to massage the nerve near his temple . I think he did it occasionally ...not sure if that made recover faster or not . Anyway...you can barely detect anything ever happened. I can remember that my son thought it kind of funny when dh tried to smile...Didn't quite work ! and for a kid I'm sure it could almost be devastating for a while .

My mum has it, it struck about 9 years ago (she was 42, I think), she was one of those where it didn't resolve spontaneously, the numbers we saw at the time were about 25% of cases were permenant. She tried a few different treatments, including acupuncture, but no success. She doesn't seem to be as bad as some cases, maybe there has been partial healing or something, you'd probably have to watch her very carefully to know she had it and although she can't smile on that side, it doesn't have a major droop either, so you can't really tell on photos. =46rom time to time she'll find a particular glass or mug is the wrong shape and she'll find it difficult to drink from and some foods she now cuts up when she wouldn't have previously, like apples.

Cheers Anne

I had a mild case about this time last summer. It was about three weeks after I had been hospitalized with a bacterial infection. One of my customers at work noticed that one side of my mouth was drooping.. She thought I should go to the emergency room right away to have a steroid shot, but I just kept a close eye on it for the next several hours. The symptoms didn't get any worse, so I didn't seek treatment right away since it happened on a weekend. I did see the doctor on Monday, he said Bell's Palsy often follows an infection. He said since mine was a mild case it would most likely resolve itself, and it did in a week or two.

If my symptoms had gotten worse, I would definitely have gone for treatment that day. I understand steroids are the standard treatment, and if administered right away will help to prevent permanent damage. Hope your case turns out to be mild like mine.

DS has been to physio and has some exercises to do. At the moment he can't really do them but trying is better than nothing.

Dee in Oz

I did ask DS about acupuncture but he wasn't to keen about that.

In DS case it isn't really noticable until he laughs or smiles which is good for him.

Most drinks are taken using a straw to save dribbles.

Thanks Dee in Oz

Cheers Anne

DS has been on Steroids for 5 days and is now weaning off them. A week or two sounds good....

No wonder you forgot about Bells Palsy after breast cancer. I hope you get an all clear now.

Dee in Oz

If you watch "Law & Order: CI", the police chief was wearing an eye patch for a couple of seasons because he (the actor) had Bell's Palsy. The show's producers decided to keep him on and the actor got better.

-- Anita --

Thanks Anita. We watch most of those types of shows but don't remember seeing any of those. Quite possibly we are behind and hat one hasn't been shown 'downunder'.

Dee in Oz

All sorts of famous people have had it. Nancy Zieman (Sewing with Nancy) did end up with permanent damage. However you would never know George Clooney had had it, apparently he had it as a teenager.

NightMist

Dee, I went to school with a girl who had Bells when she was 13 or 14 (I'm remembering back 35 years) I'm fairly sure it improved dramatically after a few months and then improved more slowly for a few more months.

Good luck to your son, this is a difficult age at the best of times.

chris (in oz)

:-)

Just married niece had it in the teen years. Had the 'steroids' and you can't tell whatsoever. HTH Butterfly (She's 32 and NO ramifications from either the illness or the steroids)