![]() Rachel was diagnosed with Bell’s a few years ago and didn’t receive the recommended combo of both steroids and antivirals initially. My friend, Rachel, recommended reaching out to Gaye from day 1 and I’m so glad she did. If you have Bell’s, you have lost hope in facial movement, you don’t know what to do next, you aren’t sure if you are receiving the best care or therapies for your face, or if you just want to hang out with an extremely bright, kind, and knowledgeable person, you should contact Gaye Cronin. This was something I learned from occupational therapist at the Atlanta Ear Clinic, Gaye Cronin. I have had to relearn how to make certain expressions and practice the amount of force needed for one side versus the other side just to keep my smile or movements symmetrical. I have yet to train the corner of mouth to turn all the way up but it is getting close. I do remember that my forehead and my lip were the last to function and to this day, my mouth muscles, specifically my bottom lip, don’t move quite like they should. I don’t remember the entire order that muscles would come back but if you’ve ever looked at an anatomical picture of the facial muscles (below), there are quite a few and I’m pretty sure they came back one tiny section at a time. Several days after the mouth twitching and a whole lot of pain later (imagine how sore you are after your hardest workout–that is how my face felt), my eye regained a small amount of movement. This is how my face was for those two weeks–completely lifeless. If you notice in the video, my eye, forehead, and cheek doesn’t blink or move at all. This was one of my first movements and I’m pretty sure I sent this video to everyone on my contact list. Not good when the lady tells you to smile and you just look at her because you can’t move your face.Īs you’ll see in my video, the slight twitch in my mouth came back first. During this time I went to the drivers license bureau to get my license renewed. It took over a month for the majority of my face to appear seminormal and several more months to feel like everything was close enough for me to be satisfied. Whether the electric shock gave it the boost it needed or whether the 14 day waiting period was up and my facial nerve knew that I had lost patience days before, I don’t know. I didn’t care if it was going to take 2 more weeks, 2 months or 2 years–I was going to be okay! The Facial Nerves Ī few days after the cattle prod and eye twitching experiment/experience, my face slowly starting coming back to life. Hope! HOPE! For 2 straight weeks I had wallowed in self pity, hiding inside the house, not inviting friends and family over to see the baby because I was too embarrassed about my face and now, that teeny tiny twitch changed my entire perspective. He put one prong in front of my ear where my facial nerve is located and one on the corner of my eye and shocked it. Because I had had zero change or improvement in over 2 weeks, he wanted to test to see if the facial nerve was still alive (HOPE!) or dead (not good). Our hope was that this little device could help predict the future. Rodgers again and this time he brought out an electric shock device that reminded me of a cattle prod. The facial nerve takes AT LEAST 14 days to regenerate so I knew to not expect any movement what-so-ever during that time. During those first 2 weeks, I would leave his office completely dejected since we were in that hurry up and wait period. Rodgers conducted many hearing tests each time I went into his office (every few days at first followed by every week followed by every month until my face was almost completely healed). (Side note: I was advised NOT to use a straw–opposite of what older therapies suggest–during the early onset stage so as not to overwork my facial nerve) I literally would have to hold a dribble cloth up to my mouth every time I took a sip. Thanks… I also had a very altered sense of taste and since I had limited movement of my tongue and no movement on half of my mouth, eating and drinking became quite a difficult task. In an attempt at humor, my husband did mention just how smooth and youthful the right side of my face looked. I would try with all my might to scrunch my face and one side would scrunch and the other side was completely smooth. No eye twitch, lip twitch, forehead wrinkle, etc. When I say complete, I mean, nothing at all. Parts 1 and 2: Symptoms/Onset & DiagnosisĪfter my initial diagnosis on February 2, 2014, I went a solid 2 weeks with complete facial paralysis on the right side.
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