Bells Palsy - my experience and how to catch it EARLY (as a person who fully recovered 3x)
I want to preface this with saying that this is my experience and the best way for a full recovery for me. Hopefully this will help someone else too, but be aware there are likely too many variables per person for my experience to be universal.
TLDR: Go to the doctor immediately for a steroid prescription (Prednisone) if your face feels funny. The recommended time to start this medication is within 72 hours of noticing symptoms, but I believe the first 24 are even more critical. Your nerves are gradually being pinched by inflammation in your face. Steroids will work to stop the inflammation. As symptoms progress, your nerves will get more and more pinched. This is causing damage to the nerves that need time to heal, sometimes years, sometimes irreversibly.
1st time: 4 years old. 2 month recovery. I was a first child and my mother paid very close attention to me, making her catch it early. Cue her freaking out and taking me to ER. I still think it must've been 24hrs before she realized though.
2nd time: 19 years old 3-4 month recovery. I wish I went to the doctor sooner but it must've been 48 hours before I went to he doctor.
3rd time 25 years old. 1 week recovery. Went to the doctor in under 10hrs of symptoms starting. (More on this below)
If you ever feel any of these things, go to your doctor to get prescribed steroids ASAP. These are the 3 tells I used to diagnose myself early: 1. Funny feeling on your tongue when you eat food. Almost like your tongue feels "rubbery" 2. Pucker your lips: is the pucker symmetrical? 3. Can you curve your tongue into a "U" shape usually? Are you still able to?
Odds are, your doctor will not be too familiar with what's happening so be confident and bold about needing the steroids.
As for the 1 week recovery of my 3rd case: Because I was so aware of the symptoms of bells palsy from the time I had it when I was 19, I was able to realize it's happening again extremely early into the onset of symptoms. It couldn't have been a full 6 hours between symptoms starting and me starting the meds.
I believe catching it so early accomplished a few things: 1. Symptoms never got as bad as my first two times (complete paralysis of 1 half of my face)
- Since my face never got fully paralyzed, recovery was very fast too. It's like I paused the onset of symptoms since I got on steroids so fast, allowing for a very fast healing phase.
I'm not aware of any underlying conditions I have that caused those 3 cases, but I will say they happened in Winter every single time.
Hopefully this comes up from anyone googling around or this is helpful for anyone who thinks they're getting Bells Palsy once again.