Know More About Bell Palsy Symptoms
Bells palsy is a condition in which one side of the patient’s face is paralyzed. This condition is most often temporary. Bell palsy symptoms usually come without any waning and no obvious cause.
Bell palsy symptoms are commonly confused with symptoms of a stroke. This is mainly because bell palsy symptoms are primarily seen in the faces of patients. Stroke patients usually experience trouble with speaking and paralysis or numbness on one side of the body, among other symptoms, while in Bells palsy, the patient’s head is the main body part that is affected by the disease.
Patients with Bells palsy usually experience stiffness of the face. Also, half of the patient’s face appears to droop. Patient’s eye on the affected side drips tears and won’t close, and only half of the face can be moved.
Bells palsy or facial weakness/paralysis occurs when the nerve that controls the patient’s facial muscle, which passes through a narrow corridor of bone, becomes inflamed or swollen. When the nerve becomes swollen, it gets pinched in the corridor where it is located, and this interferes with the communication between the nerve and the facial muscle.
When a patient has Bells palsy, he or she may experience or feel pain behind of or in front of the ear on the affected side. Patient may also experience headache, loss of taste which would lead to loss of appetite, and changes in the amount of tears and saliva that the body produces. In some cases, some patients remark that sounds seem abnormally and uncomfortably louder than usual a few days before the development of palsy.
In the USA alone, around 40,000 Americans develop Bells palsy each year. The disease may occur at any age, but it usually does not affect people younger than 15 or older than 60.
Most patients start to recover from Bells palsy within two weeks and complete recovery may come within two or three months. In some cases, however, Bells palsy take longer to cure, and some have permanent symptoms of the condition.
