Bells Palsy

So, I just recently came down with Bells Palsy, most people don't know what that is. So I might as well do a blog posting on it. Bells Palsy is when a virus weakens or paralyzes half of your face. It sucks. It is caused by trauma to the seventh cranial nerve, but fortunately it is not permanent, it will only last about four months. This is actually fancy way of saying I am incredibly stressed in life. And, it is not that uncommon, about one to every 5000 people have it, about .02% of the worlds population, and 40,000 Americans a yeah. Don't think that you're completely safe from it, live an not stressful life and it should not come to you, I am only twelve and apparently have more stress than most Americans, or at least a lot of them. During the last trimester of pregnancy or if you are diabetic then it is about four times as likely to get it. Children are not immune, as I have proved, but are highly uncommon and recover the best. The percentage of having it on your right or left side are about equal. Believe it or not, it is possible to have bilateral Bells Palsy, so on both sides of your face, uncommon, it is only in about 1% of all cases of Bells Palsy, but still possible. It usually peaks at about 2 weeks, but can peak at three weeks with Ramsey Hunt syndrome, luckily, it is not contagious. Most symptoms, or, at least my symptoms were, fever, sore throat, hard time walking, neck pain, and a running nose, then I woke up the next day with it all gone and in its place, a paralyzed face. The nerve, depending on the severity of the trauma, can take up to 18 months to heal or as little several days. The nerve recovers at a rat of about 1-2 mm per day, not very much for a large nerve. But I'll make it. Luckily recent reports of recurring Bells Palsy are at 5-9% but the average over the past ten years shows 4-14% and recurrence usually takes about 10 years to come back. Also my tastes in the front of my mouth is decreased by 2/3 and feeling to the outer ear are also transmitted by this nerve. If only part of that side of your face is numb and paralyzed, it is not Bells Palsy, because that means that after the nerve split into a group of smaller nerves, it broke, for instance the mouth is dead but the forehead is fine, it is not Bells Palsy, if the forehead, nose, eye, mouth, and cheek is dead, it is Bells Palsy, which I have. The seventh nerve controls facial expressions, so half of my face has no expression, funny to think about, right. Luckily, my muscles won't atrophy for at least a year, and it will be gone before then, so I don't have to worry about that. My eye functions, such as moving and focusing, are not affected, but blinking is, so I have to manually blink my eye with my hand. Some of the major complications of the face are severe taste lost, (good for my some of my mom's food, most is good, but for her casserole, it is good to have no taste) and facial spasms and corneal infections may occur. I have to tape my eye closed at night to prevent it from opening and drying out. I generally take eye drops every hour or so to prevent infection or damage from occurring. my eye reflex is also slowing drastically, so I have to take great care it helping it be safe and protected. One of the bad things is that my eye nerve might accidentally sidetrack to my mouth and vice-versa so I will have to retrain everything if that were to occur. Another problem is crocodile tear syndrome, where I might involuntarily shed tears while eating. If you want to know anything more click here or here
These are both sites that help you learn about it.