What is facial palsy?

Facial palsy occurs when your facial nerve is damaged. This causes weakness, droopiness and a loss of facial movement on one side (unilateral) or both sides (bilateral) of your face.

Several factors, such as infection, trauma, or stroke, can cause facial nerve injury. It can also result without a known cause, which is known as Bell's palsy. Palsy of the face can be complete or partial and temporary or permanent.

What are the symptoms of facial palsy?

Although facial palsy has numerous causes, its signs and symptoms are usually alike and encompass:

Inability to smile: Smile asymmetry can vary from almost imperceptible to extreme asymmetries with gross deformities, even at rest. Patients cannot produce a symmetric smile in its more extreme presentations, and the paralyzed side is more droopy.
Inability to shut the eye: Since one of the muscles encircling the eye helps close it, patients with facial nerve paralysis usually cannot shut the eye. Inadequate closure of the superior eyelid and reduced tear production secondary to facial nerve injury can leave the eye vulnerable to dryness and corneal irritation, usually leading to pain (particularly upon waking), abrasions, ulcerations, and occasionally blindness.
Impaired speech: As a consequence in part of the paralysis of lip and facial muscles around the mouth, patients often complain of impaired speech.
Forehead paralysis: When the frontal branch of the facial nerve is affected, patients cannot elevate their forehead. In younger patients, it may be less apparent, but in either case, this results in severe impairment of both form and function. Patients lose the capacity to elevate the eyebrow – a significant facial expression action and often develop a droopy brow, resulting in both asymmetry and potentially covering the eye and impairing vision.
Inability to remove food from the mouth: Because of paralysis of the buccinator muscle, patients complain of food getting stuck in the cheek on the paralyzed side. They cannot move the food forward and tend to use their tongue or fingers to move it.
Drooling: In severe cases of paralysis, solids or liquids can be drooled from the corner of the mouth.
Difficulty breathing through the nose: the sidewall of the nose on the paralyzed side usually collapses, resulting in difficult nasal breathing.
Facial dyskinesias (unwanted facial movements): when a person voluntarily moves one muscle with synkinesis, another muscle is involuntarily and simultaneously moved. It results when the facial nerve has degenerated and partially recovers. Typical examples are the closing of the eye and the twitching or partial elevation of the lip or the gap between the upper and lower eyelid when one tries to smile. In hyperkinesis, the resting position or function of the muscle is amplified. It is not rare that the paralyzed side of the face is tensed or pulled toward the injured side but cannot create a functional smile. Very frequently, even at rest, the lid fissure is narrower on the side of paralysis than on the normal side and can be a cause of facial asymmetry.
Medical intervention: It is required if the facial palsy only partially recovers or does not recover, if it is progressive, is present at birth, or has been of long-standing duration.

Why does facial palsy occur?

Facial nerve paralysis is present at birth in some individuals. In individuals who are not born with facial palsy, the condition arises due to one of two reasons:

Your facial nerve, which carries signals from your brain to your facial muscles, gets damaged or inflamed.
The part of your brain that carries signals to your facial muscles gets damaged.

Causes of facial palsy include:

Stroke.
Bell's palsy.
Middle ear infection.
Skull fracture.
Autoimmune disorders, like multiple sclerosis.
Head, neck or brain tumour.
Facial nerve schwannoma (a slow-growing, generally noncancerous tumour on your 7th cranial nerve).
Lyme disease.
Sarcoidosis.
Ramsay hunt syndrome.
Guillain-barré syndrome.

How is facial palsy diagnosed?

Doctors most often use clinical evaluation to diagnose facial palsy. The physician will:

Test for weakness or paralysis on one or both sides of the face
Evaluate the patient's facial expression ability, such as smiling or eyebrow-raising
Monitor forehead, eyelid, and mouth movements.

They'll also question the patient:

When and how rapidly symptoms began.
Any illnesses or possible triggers in the past few weeks.

Symptoms that accompany the facial palsy, like pain or changes in taste.

Although not always required, we might order some tests to verify the diagnosis or exclude other diseases:

Imaging tests: MRI or CT scans can be done to rule out other causes of facial palsy, like tumours.
Electromyography (EMGEMG): It is a test that measures nerve activity and provides information regarding the severity of the illness.
Blood tests: blood tests can be done to exclude other infections or illnesses.

It is important to differentiate bell's palsy from other causes of facial weakness, including stroke, middle ear infection, or multiple sclerosis. The most important physical finding differentiating bell's palsy is forehead muscle weakness, either partial or complete.

How is facial palsy treated?

Our facial palsy experts provide treatment for all regions of the face and related conditions.

Facial palsy therapy may depend on the etiology and site of the paralysis, the time elapsed since the onset of paralysis at the time of presentation, the patient's age, and patient choice.

Postoperative rehabilitation

The facial palsy experts anticipate that you will be dedicated to your rehabilitation and invest in yourself to optimize the outcome of your therapy. The role of pre and postoperative rehabilitation cannot be overemphasized.

Before your surgery, you will see one of our skilled therapists who work with facial nerve rehabilitation. Depending on the type of reconstruction planned, your visit may involve exercise recommendations. In some reconstructions, exercise is crucial to a good final result and outcome.

Following surgery, you must visit every three months for a check-up in the first year and every six months in the second year. If you are out of state or out of the country, we will assist you in finding a therapist in your hometown.

Working together

Your session with rehabilitation professional is for initial and ongoing guidance but not in place of ongoing work at home or elsewhere – alone or with family and friends.

On visitation, the doctor will determine with you the most appropriate treatment and embark on the path of rehabilitation together.

Can the risk of facial palsy be lowered?

In several instances, like in the case of Bell's palsy, the facial palsy often manifests itself without an identifiable cause or warning. However, there are some measures that betake the risk of occurrence of such types of facial palsy:

Preventive measures

Control underlying illnesses: controlling illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension might lower the risk of stroke-related facial palsy or other vascular-related facial palsy.
Decrease stress: There could be a correlation between stress and the development of bell's palsy, perhaps because stress weakens the immune system. Stress reduction by relaxation procedures could be helpful.
Practice good hygiene: Because facial palsy is sometimes caused by viral or bacterial infections, following good hygiene practices might decrease the chance of encountering likely pathogens.
Guard against tick bites: Tick-borne Lyme disease can cause facial paralysis. Thus, applying insect repellents and inspecting the body for ticks following a nature trip within high-risk areas for Lyme disease can prevent it.

Lifestyle changes

Eat a healthy diet: A highly nutritious diet will guarantee general health and also increase power in the immune system.
Exercise on a regular basis: Exercise can enhance cardiovascular health, which diminishes the risk of suffering from a stroke that leads to facial paralysis.
Avoid tobacco smoking: smoking is a risk factor for stroke, so quitting or avoiding tobacco consumption might decrease the risk of facial palsy caused by stroke.
Reduce the consumption of alcohol: excessive alcohol intake can increase the proclivity of developing certain medical conditions that can trigger facial paralysis.

While these measures may be beneficial in reducing the risk for some cases of facial palsy, they cannot ensure prevention.

When should I contact my doctor?

If you experience facial palsy, call a doctor right away. They can help determine what caused your symptoms and treat any underlying conditions.

If you or someone around you gets stroke symptoms like walking problems, coordination problems, blurred vision or slurred speech, call your local emergency room.

Why Tender Palm Super-Speciality Hospital for facial palsy treatment in Lucknow, India?

Tender Palm Super-Speciality Hospital offers Facial Palsy Treatment in Lucknow, India. We have experienced team of ENT and neuro specialists. We provide precise diagnosis, advanced surgical options, facial rehabilitation therapies, and compassionate care for patients with facial nerve paralysis, Bell’s palsy, and trauma-related facial palsy.