BP

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I started having headaches and pressure around my left eye and right in between my eyes. This lasted for a week or two until I finally had my doctor take a look. I was sure I had a sinus infection but when I went in, nothing. A day or two later, my tongue began to feel odd and slowly became numb straight down the middle, all of the left side....very odd sensation. Along with my numb tongue I had a tingling around my left eye which covered and area about the size of a baseball. My dad insisted I go get checked in case of a stroke (at 25 yrs old though?) so I went. MRI showed nothing but they said I should go to my regular doctor....more money....the next day is when the paralysis started. I couldn't move my mouth right, my nostrils wouldn't flare and my eyebrow wouldn't lift, it was scary....so on may 3rd 2014 I went to my GP. He took one look at me and said.....Bells palsy....He told me that there really wasn't anything worth trying other than a round of steroids and antiviral meds. He also said "at least it isn't a painful problem"...Which I later wanted to punch him in the face for saying because it was, in fact, very painful. I spent an entire week in my bedroom. Took the meds, stocked up on eye drops, eye patch, pain meds and hoped became very, very down. I didn't know what to do.....I searched the web far and wide and always hit dead ends. My face hurt, my head hurt and my neck on the BP side hurt...badly. I couldn't sleep because of the pain and the meds didn't help (tramadol).It was a constant pain and I wasn't getting any sleep so I continued my search for help. I tried B vitamins, massages, relaxing baths.....still no movement. I had to hold my mouth to talk, eat, drink, laugh.......It was unsettling. My family tried to be sympathetic but the paralysis was so drastic that it was hard for them to not stare and talk about it....Eventually I began to realize that I was stuck this way for now, maybe for longer and had to accept it. I cracked jokes at my own expense now and then even. I tried to keep going to the gym.....I started to think of it as one of the most powerful lessons I have ever taken away from this life. In a world so obsessed with looks and perfection it is hard not to become part of the superficial culture....some probably don't even realize that they are a part of it. When you are presented with a condition with such drastic physical effects, you go through many stages, feelings and emotions. Fear, shock, anger, depression, anxiety, deficient....It's overwhelmingly exhuasting. Eventually, I gathered my big girl panties and began living life as normal as I could. Slowly my movement came back but rewired wrong....thus leaving me with a blink when I smile.... ;) but, I can actually smile again and that was all I wanted back. I continued to have random numbness, tingling and a lot of twitching for the next several months. I found out I was pregnant in late July, 2014 and dealt with the BP on my left side pretty well through that until January or February of 2015 when I developed BP on THE OTHER SIDE OF MY FACE WHILE 7 MONTHS PREGNANT!!!!! This time though, I knew what to expect and the shock value had decreased....I knew how to manage and what helped and what didn't. They wouldn't give me anything for BP this time and it cleared 100% in 2 weeks........while still living with the residual symptoms of the first bout of BP. It was rough lol. I am pushing my 2 yr mark now and still to this day have numbness, tingling, dry eye, pain in face, neck, ear and head.