Paresis of the facial nerve, symptoms and treatment

Many people are familiar with such a disease as paresis of the facial nerve, otherwise it is also called the neuritis of the facial nerve. This disease is an inflammation of the facial nerve (one branch is affected, more rarely both).

Depending on the causes of paresis, there are 2 types: primary and secondary. In the first case paresis of the facial nerve appears as a result of permanent and prolonged stresses, which inevitably affect the nervous system, in this case the facial nerve suffers. It can also arise due to hypothermia. You can get cold in windy weather or rainy, so for those who are prone to frequent colds, it is important to monitor your health and dress warmer in bad weather. In the second case, paresis of the facial nerve occurs as a result of various diseases, such as otitis media of the middle ear, herpetic infections, mumps (otherwise epidemic parotitis). There are cases when paresis develops after various injuries of the facial part.

How to identify paresis of the facial nerve. Symptoms.

Paresis does not appear immediately, but gradually. Initially, there may be pain in the ear, and after a couple of days there is an asymmetry of the face (the muscles are turned toward the healthy half of the face). In some cases, there are painful sensations when palpation of the cheeks, forehead, the area of the lymph nodes and lips. The patient is difficult to eat liquid food (since half of the lip does not close), he can not cover one eye, he has a feeling of tingling in the area of the inflamed nerve. Often a person loses susceptibility to taste, it arises because of partial paralysis of the tongue.

Thus, with paresis, the following symptoms appear:

- asymmetry of the face, the corner of the mouth is lowered, the face is turned to the side of the healthy half;

- tenderness of cheeks, forehead;

- Numbness of the facial muscles, it is difficult to say to smile, eat and perform chewing movements;

Loss of taste;

- dryness in the eyes (arises due to the fact that the patient can not cover his eyes and the outer shell begins to dry out).

In order to make a definitive diagnosis, many neurologists perform small tests with patients: they ask to smile, pull out a tube of the lips, raise and lower their eyebrows, wrinkle their forehead, close and open their eyes. If it is difficult for a patient to perform a test or if he does not get anything, then he has paresis of the facial nerve.

Of course, it is not worth it to start treatment yourself. First of all, you need to consult a neurologist, only he will put a correct diagnosis and prescribe the necessary treatment.

At the initial stage of the disease course, the treatment is a method of decongestants (it can be triampur, glycerol or furosemide), glucocorticoids (such as prednisolone), intramuscularly B vitamins and, in addition, prescribe drugs with vasodilating effect.

In addition to all other treatment, the patient himself is able to bring the moment of his recovery closer. For this, it is necessary to move facial muscles as often as possible, as if to teach them again the movement. Well, if the patient builds various grimaces throughout the day, although it is funny from the side, but it allows you to knead the "asleep" muscles. In addition, the patient himself can make himself a massage, make circular movements with his hands on the inflamed part of the face.

If there is a secondary paresis of the facial nerve, the treatment is a course of physiotherapy. Ways of warming are prescribed by the neurologist himself. In addition to physiotherapy, massage of the affected muscles is necessary and therapeutic exercise is mandatory.

Surgical intervention is carried out only in cases where paresis of the facial nerve is caused by some kind of trauma, as a result of which there was a rupture of the nervous tissue.