Life with Bell’s Palsy (2017)

Bell's Palsy is truly one of those things that just suddenly fuck you over. I was 16 when I called my mom from high school and said "hey, don't panic, but half my face is paralyzed". In retrospect, this was probably not the best way to do it. Food ? Slides out of your mouth. Spit ? Goddamnit, slides out too. I took the reasonable option of still going to school, as a high schooler. Bold move, but thankfully, noone was a dick about it. Best way around this whole situation was to laugh about it anyways. For what reason did it happen ? None, same as the article. Just popped in one day. It took 3 months to come back to mostly normal, so it was pretty short for me, thankfully, but the sudden onset can just... happen. Doctors were thinking of some herpes causing an inflammation and pressing against the nerve, but it can be literally anything, and even better, it can come back at any time. Just a stroke of bad luck. As of today, I'm back at almost 100%, but I still feel that muscles on one side of the face are just this little bit less strong than the other side.

Life without being able to blink just one of your eyes is a frustrating one. Sleeping with an eye patch might make you feel like a pirate for a few weeks, but dear god the dryness. Your face ends up overcompensating, naturally. Can't feel yourself smiling on one side ? Clearly that's because your muscles aren't going hard enough, so go on, make them work HARDER. The one side that was smiling looked more like a goblin than anything else really.

Being told I maybe had face herpes was truly a highlight in my life due do how out of the blue and unlikely it sounded.

I had it over 20 years ago, and Dr. Google wasn't what it is now. So when it came on, I was left wondering "WTF? Is it a stroke?" I sympathize with the author to some extent, though it seems the change to her appearance hit her much harder than it did myself. I've got most functionality back, but still have a crooked smile. Meh, adds character, I guess. I found out the hard way that my bagpipe career will never get off the ground, as I can't seal my mouth well enough to blow ($35 for that practice chanter I'll never get back). Can't whistle anymore, either (no great loss there). One eye has a hard time closing as tightly as the other, but I can still wear contacts so it doesn't have any practical bad outcomes.

Treatment might have changed over the years, but the prednisone I was given really layed on the depression. Make note of that should you get a case, and prednisone is prescribed: you're depressed because of the high dose of steroids, not the fact that your face is all crooked. Prednisone didn't seem to do any good anyway.

I guess I'm rambling to say that if you wake up one day and half your face doesn't work, and assuming it's not a stroke or something, it won't kill you. It'll get mostly better, but your face might have some added "character" when it's over. But mostly: no one will notice more than you do, so quit worrying about it. Most people I meet, when told, have no idea. My wife notices when I get tired (eye droops a bit). And now you have a story about the day you thought you were having a stroke.

I had Bell's Palsy back in August. Even though most people fully recover, it's very difficult to feel any optimism when you're looking in the mirror and your face can't move at all.

Thankfully, I do now seem to have just about fully recovered. I started getting tiny movements back around 3 weeks and by 6 weeks it was substantially improved. By day 33 I regained the ability to fully close my affected eye, and some time thereafter normal blinking resumed. Today, only yawning continues to feel like I have weird asymmetric facial pressures.

It is emotionally scarring though. I'm still less socially outgoing than I was before, and I now live in the constant fear that it could happen again. The slightest tingle in my ear has me racing to take anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

I had Bell’s in 2015. Got home from a week in SF. Cracked open one of the bottles of wine I bought while in Napa and was really upset with how bad it tasted compared to how it tasted while at the winery. The next morning it was already having its way with me.

I never felt so self conscious and helpless in my life. It destroyed my voice (it was so gravely it made Tom Waits sound like a non-smoker), got multiple eye infections because I couldn’t close one of my eyes naturally, food would fall out of one side of my mouth while chewing, sealing took major work.

It took almost a year and half to recover. It left its mark. My one eye starts to droop if I pull a late night coding session or am feeling worn out. Always there to remind me of the worst year and a half of my life.

My mother suffers from this, and has for over a year now. It’s had serious effects on her mental health, self image, and in some cases daily functioning. In her case it has improved, but it has not resolved itself and probably never fully will at this point.

I won’t say what its onset coincided with though (you can figure it out).

I experienced Bell's Palsy for about a week and being told by the doctor it might never recover was.... well, quite frankly terrifying. For some unknown reason I woke up one day and it was gone. We've had a few mental glitches in the family over the years so put it down to genetics.

Man, I had Bell's palsy in 8th grade. It lasted for about two months. Middle school is no place to be a fat kid, but it turns out it's really not the place to be the fat kid with a drooping mouth and an eye patch. I got about 95% of my face back, I'm 40 and if you watch me smile or blink there's a noticeable delay between the left and right sides of my face.

My cousin has had it twice as an adult, the second time left her at about 60%, which has been pretty hard on her.

The fact that people judge appearances first, because it is unpreventable and incurable I'd give it 1 out of 10 stars.

covid vaccine seems to trigger this too? there was this video of a canadian actress that got it after her astrazeneca? doses.