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Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 7

Saturday, March 07, 2015 , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Other ways facial palsy affects my life:


From a practical point of view, I can't blow up balloons, blow out candles or gargle. I can't blow raspberries and I can't whistle, and I remember being so proud of myself in primary school when Richard Larnders taught me how to whistle properly. 

There are also the psychological effects. Not least because the image of beauty and worth that we are sold by the media includes that beautiful wide dazzling smile, but also because of the looks and comments from other people. 

People regularly crack jokes about Bell's Palsy; search it on social media (not this week because we've filled it with awesomeness) and it's often full of cruel comments. 

People stare; out of curiosity or just rudeness, either way is awful. People actually ask "What is wrong with your face?". People use it to hurt you and tell you nobody is going to want you with a face like that. 

As well as the difficulty in getting treatment, both finding a specialist and getting funding, there is also a general perception about Botox. I have lost count of the number of hurtful comments about me having Botox; about it being vain, about getting old. 

I don't have frown lines because I can't frown and I don't have laughter lines because my eyes don't scrunch when I laugh, nothing to do with Botox and also because I take exceptionally good care of my skin. 

Botox allows me to live my life, to do things other people take for granted. Botox enabled me to run Blenheim Triathlon on my 30th birthday. Botox enabled me to go swimming in a mountain lake in New Hampshire. Botox enables me to leave the house in winter without suffering agonising pain and helped stop most of my migraines. 

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Make Up Tips

Thursday, March 05, 2015 , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

Make up is difficult enough as it is without a wonky face. I was lucky enough to get some make up tips from a couple of experts recently which I thought I would share.

Complexion:

We've all seen the tutorials for contouring which look like a complex jigsaw in varying shades and are quite frankly terrifying. Contouring does not have to be that complicated. A swipe of bronzing powder below the cheekbone can do the trick on it's own. If one cheekbone appears lower than the other, simply swipe the bronzer slightly higher to give the appearance that the cheekbone itself is higher.

You can also add a highlighter on the cheekbone, again adjust the positioning to balance the face.

Eyebrows:

My eyebrows are not only different heights but also arch differently. Start by getting a brow pencil (any will do) and fill in the brows trying to match them up as much as possible, be it lengthening one, adding more of an arch to the other. At this stage it might look odd as you might not be used to filling them in. Once you've pencilled out a shape you're happy with pluck any stray hairs around the edges. Just remember no ones eyebrows will perfectly match :)


You can also use things like highlighters or concealers to give the illusion that the lower brow is sitting higher. Try putting a bit of the highlighter or brightening concealer under the lower brow to bring more light to it.
 
Eye make up:
 
For opening up eyes, highlighting the tear duct area, and using a light coloured eyeliner really help. Curling your eyelashes is also a great way to open up the eye.
 
My eyeshadow never looks even, which is a problem shared by one of the beauty experts I spoke to as one of her eyelid folds seems a little more hooded than the other. If you are going for something subtle something matte will help diffuse light and the lack of eyeshadow on one lid won't be as prominent. For something more dramatic, just make sure you are checking how much eyeshadow is visible with your eyes open looking straight in the mirror. It might be that you bring the eyeshadow higher on one eye which will give the illusion of symmetry.
 
Pinterest is a great place to get tips on identifying eye shape and eye makeup to suit this https://uk.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=eyeshadow%20shape It might be a case of doing your eye shadow slightly differently on each eye to give the effect that it is the same.

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 6

Monday, March 02, 2015 , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Eating and drinking with facial palsy:

Eating without dribbling and drinking out of cups is something most people take for granted after about the age of 2, but with facial palsy it's not that easy. 


Incomplete mouth closure can lead to dribbling on the affected side and chewing the inside of your cheek is often a problem. This makes eating in public, particularly in groups, a major issue. Smaller bites help. 

Drinking out of any cups in the acute phase is difficult and straws can help. A few years ago we were having breakfast in a restaurant in Vermont where I was presented with my coffee in a rustic earthenware mug. It soon became apparent that the only thing I was going to achieve by trying to drink out of it would be coffee down my front. Thick rimmed mugs are a no go, as are those bowl shaped coffee cups. I nearly always get my coffee in a to go cup as they are generally easier to drink from. Drinking from bottles is something I still struggle with.

In addition to the practicalities of eating and drinking with loss of mouth control, synkinesis meant that my eye would water badly when I ate. Eating in hotel restaurants alone with everyone thinking you're crying is so much fun! Botox has helped with this but hot food, both in temperature and spice, still makes my eye start running. 

My taste buds were also affected. My favourite takeaway curry suddenly tasted horrible and I discovered I actually liked whiskey. 

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 5

Monday, March 02, 2015 , Posted in , , 0 Comments

Living with facial pain:

Anybody who knows me knows how much I love football. Unfortunately football is played outside in the winter. After my second episode when I was 21, my face became sensitive to the cold and it got worse after my third episode. Spending any amount of time outside when it was cold caused agonising pain. Sitting outside for 2 hours to watch a game of football was not going to happen.

I was prescribed medication to help with the nerve pain because it was stopping me from sleeping but I could only take them at night as they made me really drowsy. When it was windy was the worst, and made my whole face feel like it had seized up.

When I finally got seen by a specialist, 11 years after I first developed facial palsy, and started a programme of physiotherapy and Botox to help manage the synkenesis and hypertonicity things started to improve. After 3 years of treatment, I only sometimes get facial pain and it's not the agonising pain that it was, and although the cold still makes my face feel tight, I can now sit outside for 2 hours every other week to watch the football - which is mostly a good thing! 


Botox has literally changed my life. 

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 4

Monday, March 02, 2015 , Posted in , , 0 Comments

Life with unexpected facial expressions:


Synkinesis happens when the recovering nerve reattaches to the wrong muscles. This meant that when I tried to smile my eye would close, when I tried to raise my eyebrows the corner of my mouth would raise and when I ate I would cry.

Luckily with a combination of physiotherapy and Botox over the last 3 years, I have largely managed to control the worst of the synkenesis although when I am due more Botox I can feel it starting to creep back. My platysma, the muscle in the neck, starts to get tight and pulls whenever I try to smile, pout, whistle or say certain sounds. I start to get over activity in my "good" eyebrow which pulls at the opposite corner of my mouth and I get dimples (not the cute kind) in my chin with most mouth movements. Everything just generally starts getting tight and starts pulling. 

Many people don't have access to treatment such as specialist neurophysiotherapy or Botox because of the low number of specialists in the country and having to fight for funding for what is deemed to be cosmetic. 

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 3

Monday, March 02, 2015 , Posted in , , 0 Comments

Life with a unique smile:


A smile is the universal language of friendship, love, encouragement, happiness and kindness and losing the ability to smile properly makes this simple, but powerful, act of communication difficult. 

Smiling at people in the street, in shops, in bars, draws attention to the fact that your smile is different. Some people stare, some people ask what is wrong with your face, some people are just downright rude.

It becomes easier to try and hide the difference by not smiling at all or limiting it to very small, controlled, close lipped smiles, which in turn makes people thing you are miserable or unfriendly. 

Photos are the worst; constantly being told to smile, when that's the one thing you wish you could do but can't. 

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 2

Sunday, March 01, 2015 , Posted in , , 0 Comments

Life with an eye that doesn't blink:


Asides from winking at everyone all the time, which can get really awkward when they think you're flirting, life with an eye that doesn't blink is a pain in the, well, eye. 

Whenever the weather is windy and cold or hot and bright, a none blinking eye suffers. Wearing glasses helps protect against wind and cold (cold eyeballs hurt) and help stop bits of dust and grit etc. from getting in my eye, which my blink should protect from. Sunglasses pretty much whenever light levels are above gloomy are a must as your eye is open and exposed to UVA/UVB rays basically all the time. 

Because my eye doesn't close completely, simple things like washing my face, washing my hair (especially having it washed at the hairdressers), spraying hairspray, dying my hair (hair dye in your eye hurts like a b**** for hours!), swimming, splashing with water with the kids all became issues. 

In the acute phase of BP, sleeping is fun too; making sure I don't scratch my cornea on your pillow or duvet and being woken up early because open eyes think it's morning sooner. 

As the blink doesn't work to lubricate the eye, dry eye is a real problem and means eye drops and gels just to keep it hydrated. Dry eye hurts, a lot. The FP eye gets tired quicker when driving, using a computer etc.  

At 16, I had perfect vision, good enough for the RAF to consider letting me near the controls of a fighter jet. Now my vision in my FP side is 3 times worse than in my good side. The optician thinks the dehydration, extra exposure to light, the atmosphere and irritants and being used more, because it doesn't get the blink rests, are probably contributory factors. 

Facial Palsy Awareness Week: Day 1

Sunday, March 01, 2015 , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Why and when I developed facial palsy:

I was 17 and hadn't felt great all day. Towards the end of the day I found my boss staring at me aghast. The left side of my face had dropped. Everyone thought I was having a stroke. It was Bell's Palsy. I was promised it would be gone in a matter of weeks. It wasn't. 

It happened again when I was 21. Again I was told it would go. It didn't. 

When I was 27 I had a third episode. This time there were no reassurances it'd get better, confusion about why it hadn't gone previously and concern that it had happened again. I had a million tests and scans but nobody could find an explanation.

                   Me, pre-facial palsy 


http://www.facialpalsy.org.uk

Facial Palsy Awareness Week

Sunday, March 01, 2015 , Posted in , , 0 Comments

It's the first ever Facial Palsy Awareness Week from 1-7 March #FPAW. Over the next 7 days you will read 7 statements on here that describe the effects of facial palsy. You will read them and then you can forget them. Those affected by this condition cannot forget, they live with this daily. This condition can hit any one of us, from small babies to the elderly, at any time with no warning. There are no nationally funded trials investigating causes or treatments for facial paralysis. Many people are denied treatment because it is deemed purely 'cosmetic'. I'd like you to read my statements over the next 7 days and decide for yourself whether this condition should simply be disregarded as cosmetic.

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