Coping With Bell's Palsy

I am a 53 year old woman in good health. I am seldom sick and try to stay active. My biggest problem is being overweight, but I’ve working on loosing weight.

On Friday January 25, 2008 I began to feel like I was coming down with an ear infection. My left ear had alot of pressure, I had a horrible headache and pain behind my left ear and I was beginning to not feel so good. The next day was Saturday and I felt a little dizzy and noticed that I lost the taste sensation on the left side of my tongue. On Sunday my symptoms continued to get worse. I became increasingly dizzy and could barely hear out of my left ear and my taste on my left side was gone. I had no idea what was going on. On Monday I noticed that the left side of my mouth felt numb - sort of like I’d had a shot of novacain and I was beginning to drool slightly. I was still very dizzy. I called the doctor and went in to see him and he thought I might have had a TIA (mini stroke). He put me on a daily dose of asperin and ordered lab tests and an MRI

On Tuesday I had the blood tests and that evening at 10 pm I had the MRI I was terrified.. and had no idea what was wrong with me. I was so horribly dizzy now that walking took effort and I wasn’t able to drive.

On Wednesday morning I woke up still dizzy and walking holding on to everything.. I noticed that my eye was now sagging and I couldn’t move the left side of my face. I called the doctor again and he told me to go to emergency.

At emergency they diagnosed me with Bells Palsy and because I had the MRI knew that it wasn’t a stroke. That was the biggest relief of all.

Since then I have been to have my hearing tested and have high tone loss in my left ear. I will have it checked again in three months to see if it has returned. I hear static in my left ear constantly. I can hardly walk unassisted and spend most of my days in bed. I am so dizzy that I have to hang on to something or someone to walk.

In all the sites I’ve read.. no one has mentioned the dizziness I am experiencing.

The doctors put me on anti-virals and prednesone. I have had some improvement in the face. Minimal.. but some improvement. It has been 15 days since the initial onset of this disease.

I pray that all of us that suffer with this will have a rapid recovery. It is not a pleasant thing to deal with.