WHTM Bells Palsy
Author: Peter Kaminski Issue: 2025-08-20
WHTM: Bell's Palsy
by Peter Kaminski
Hey, I wanted to tell you about an interesting health condition called Bell’s palsy, named after Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842), a Scottish surgeon, neurologist, and anatomist who studied it. It’s a functional paralysis of one side of the face. “Functional” because the muscles could move, but the facial nerve (cranial nerve VII for the med geeks) that usually sends signals to them has stopped working.
“Palsy” refers to some kind of paralysis. Unlike the more well-know cerebral palsy, Bell’s palsy is typically temporary, lasting weeks or months. Recovery is usually, but not always, complete.
There are around 40k new cases in the US per year. Or to put another way, between 1-3% of US residents will experience Bell’s palsy at some point in their lives.
It sort of happens out of nowhere. (The medical term is “idiopathic.”) Scientists think what happens is an old virus infection–chickenpox/shingles, mono, cold sore herpes, influenza–“reactivates” and causes the facial nerve to swell along its length. Through the process of evolution, humans and other primates have had their skull reshaped from other mammals in various ways, and also need that nerve to carry a lot of data to control the face for social communication. It turns out there’s a spot near your ear where the bony channel the nerve runs in has very tight tolerances, and any swelling there sort of stops the whole nerve from working. The nerve function slowly comes back, but it takes weeks and months.
What Happened To Me (WHTM): I developed Bell’s palsy about 3.5 weeks ago, at the end of July. I had a night at the hospital to rule out a stroke–CT and MRI of my head, echocardiogram of my heart. They didn’t find any problems, and the facial asymmetry didn’t go away like it would have with a TIA “mini” stroke, so that leaves Bell’s palsy. (There’s a similar condition, Ramsay Hunt syndrome, caused specifically by shingles reactivation, but gets worse and usually doesn’t have a complete recovery. Thankfully, I think I don’t have that, although I’ve found out a friend who did.)
And then I got a bonus! The next day, after the first night in the hospital, the hospital doctor coincidentally noticed that I was having a minor episode of not being able to swallow as well as I should be able to, unrelated to the Bell’s. I thought it was nothing, and had just accommodated to the symptoms, but thankfully she noticed it and thought it was the tip of the iceberg of something more serious. She ordered some tests, which required another two nights in the hospital as a more or less healthy person, which confirmed her suspicion, an inflamed esophagus, caused by immune system reactions (sort of like an allergic esophagus). We got that figured out, got some immediate relief, and then also some continuing treatment–mostly dietary changes to avoid allergy triggers.
So the Bell’s. It’s not the worst thing in the world, and actually it sounded like great news after worrying about a stroke. But it’s also kind of a pain. The worst thing is that your eye doesn’t automatically blink. I.e., I could totally win a one-eyed staring contest! It also makes it SUPER easy to put drops in your eye, you don’t have to hold your eyelids open! Which is good, because you’ll need to put eye drops in every hour or two. 🙄
(Oh btw, Bell’s emojis are fun – this is me smiling! 🫤)
The first week, the right side of my face didn’t move at all. My mouth and eyebrows started moving again a bit the second week, and now I can close my eye voluntarily, with some effort. Still no automatic blinking, which makes sleeping, showering, and being outside in the wind kinda tricky. (I’m still using goggles and eye protectors for all of those.)
I’m grateful for eye drops, nerves, doctors, hospitals, and modern medicine in general. I also got a visceral reminder, as a person of slowly advancing years, if you don’t think you already have enough reasons to keep yourself healthy (happiness for you and your loved ones, people who would miss you at work or on the socials, etc.), a REALLY good reason to stay healthy is so that you don’t have to go to the hospital. Great place when you need it, but SO exhausting, even for a healthy person!
Stay healthy! And appreciate your smile and blink for me. 🙂
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- Peter Kaminski (author)
- 2025 (year)
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