Yesterday morning I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy.
Bell’s is a (typically) temporary condition caused by swelling of the 7th cranial nerve. It manifests itself as mild to severe paralysis of one or both sides of the face. The severity of my case seems to wax and wane from
almost unnoticeable to Sylvester the Cat sound-alike. So all in all, I have a rather mild case.
The prevailing theory for my case is a flare up of the herpes simplex I virus (the one that causes cold sores) due to job-related stress. I usually get cold sores when I get stressed out, but I guess this time I was just lucky 
. I’m on Valtrex and Prednisone (anti-viral and steroid) with the hopes that swelling of the nerve will decrease more rapidly.
The only really difficult part of Bell’s (for me) is the eye dryness. My right eye doesn’t close completely when I blink, so it’s constantly dry. I’ve been prescribed Lacri-Lube, which is an artificial tear ointment that keeps my eye nice and moist. Unfortunately, it also keeps my eye nice and blurry, which gives me a headache like none other, so I’ve resigned to wearing a pirate patch until this inconvenience goes away (it’s not as cool as one might think).
The prognosis for folks in my age group is quite good. Over 90% recover completely, and in mild cases like mine it’s virtually unheard of for someone NOT to recover completely. So I’m pretty stoked about that.
All in all, this might end up being a good thing. It forces me to relax and not let work and life stress me out. At work, I consciously let stress build up inside of me in order to push myself farther and harder than I would otherwise, and now that’s going to change. I’m going to start a daily exercise program to help reduce my stress levels.
I’m going to be a new person because of all this.
