I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy while I was still in the hospital after my little girl was born. I had great care right away and started a course of steroids and anti viral medication, but the effects were pretty serious and I looked like I had a severe stroke on the left side of my face.
From March - May, the neurologist I was working with seemed interested and was doing lots of follow ups, but I was only getting a little better. In June, my family doctor suggested I try physical therapy. That helped a lot and by the end of the therapy cycle, I was looking a lot more like myself. I still had a few "dead spots" and I still didn't have my smile back, but I had a smile of sorts. That was mid July.....
About a week after the therapy cycle ended, I noticed that my mouth was moving when I raised my eyebrows - definitely not a GOOD thing - and I was having a lot of muscle twitches and discomfort. So, I called my neurologist and requested that we move up my next follow up appointment. She basically told me that the twitches and discomfort were normal because the damaged nerve was healing and she gave me a prescription for Lyrica to quiet the nerve signals at night. But, she didn't really address the fact that my eyebrows were moving my mouth and said nothing about following up again. I gave things a few more weeks and the only change was that when my eyebrows moved my mouth it was noticeable and uncomfortable. So, back to physical therapy.
Tomorrow is the halfway point in the current physical therapy cycle and the therapist has said that if we don't see improvement with the eyebrow/mouth connection he wants me to try a new neurologist. I don't know how I feel about that..... I don't know if I want to see another doctor or try homeopathic treatments.
I'm getting really frustrated with the whole process. Initially, I thought I would get better right away and look like myself again. Now, I'm wondering if I will ever look like myself again. I'm really hoping I can get to a point where muscles aren't twitching all the time and the discomfort goes away, no matter how I look.
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