@shoesnbags wrote:
@Toppers3
Did you have any idea what caused it for you? (Got a shot? Dental work? Recently had a virus? Under a lot of stress?) or did it just pop up out of the blue?
Hi @shoesnbags ,
Please bear with me as I explain what happened to me.
Hopefully it might help others understand this condition a bit better, because sometimes it can be confused with having a stroke.
Either way, you have to go to the ER to get checked out so that it can be determined that you have Palsy, and that you're not having a stroke.
If anyone is interested and would like to read more about it, inflammation to the 7th cranial nerve of the face causes the Palsy symptoms, but there are any number of medical conditions/situations that supposedly can cause it to occur.
When my right eye was visibly affected, our primary care doctor referred me to a Neurologist for additional care then.
When I initially had the Palsy, it literally came on out of nowhere.
I remember noticing that my mouth couldn't open properly one evening, but I didn't think much of it because I've had TMJ issues with my jaw for years.
Having mouth issues can be an on-coming sign of Palsy for some, but I didn't know it.
There are different symptoms that are connected to Palsy that affect people differently.
Some people can be mildly affected, and some can be more severely affected.
I'm one of those who was more severely affected on the right side of my face.
The Palsy has permanently weakened both of my eye muscles, but my right eye is worse.
I also had pain around my right jaw the same time my mouth wasn't opening properly, and pain around that side of my ear and neck, again thinking that it was jaw-related when my face was first affected.
I also had some other symptoms too, but they didn't start showing up until the next day.
By the next afternoon, things began to get worse, so I called our doctor's office and spoke to a nurse, who told me to go to the ER.
The right side of my face was becoming quite affected. My speech was noticeably slurred, and my face started to freeze up where my eye could not move properly.
I had to buy artificial tears and a sleep mask to keep my eye from drying out especially at night, since it couldn't close or blink normally.
My eyes stopped blinking at the same time. That was weird! LOL!!
First my left eye would blink, and then there would be this delay, and then my right eye would blink! That drove me nuts!!
Plus the eye, eye lid, brow, and cheek twitching that you hear others describe. that can be constant for awhile since that cranial nerve is swollen.
I ended up going to the ER both times that I had Palsy, because they want to check for signs of stroke.
Palsy can effect the ears, eyes, nose, face, neck and jaw, mouth and your speech, along with chewing and swallowing.
A stoke can also affect your speech, but it can also affect your body as well.
Palsy does not affect your arms and legs.
When I saw the Neurologist, he ran different blood tests, and sent me for an MRI of my brain and head, checking for things like MS, for example.
He was looking for different medical conditions that could cause Palsy.
He also ran special blood tests, looking for Lyme, and vascular conditions.
After examining everything carefully, he thinks that the Palsy happened to me, due to me being a Type 2 diabetic.
He also feels that it can occur again with me, since it first showed up in the right side of my face, and then several months later it showed up in the left side of my face.
While it was in the left side of my face, it also came back in my right side at the same time, making that eye worse.
When I saw the Neurologist, he had told me that he felt that it had never really left my right side to begin with, when I had it on my left side.
There's thinking that the Palsy is caused by a virus that stays dormant in your body, like a Herpes virus that causes Chicken Pox, and then it flares up again.
There's a theory out there that instead of developing Shingles from the virus, it manifests as Palsy symptoms instead.
With the ear pain that comes with it, some people get shingles in their ear on the side that has the Palsy.
I haven't had that happen.
My hearing has been negatively affected though, where I cannot hear as well as I used to, and sounds are also magnified too, where it can sound like someone is speaking way too loudly to me, to the point where it bothers my ears.
As I mentioned, if I'm feeling particularly stressed or if I've been ill, I can have a flare-up of symptoms on either one or both sides of my face at the same time, that's very painful.
I still see the Neurologist once a year for a follow-up visit, just to make sure everything's alright.
This past year's visit has been postponed, due to my broken right foot needing more time to heal--I put off this appointment.
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