My husband is 29 and has facial paralysis. It started in January 2016 when he noticed that he was having issues closing his eye, that it was slowing down, not blinking the same as the other etc. he also said that when it all started his ear (on the side of the paralysis) was bothering him, itching him – not the inside of the ear, but the outside the pinna…
After going to the hospital and seeing a neurologist and maxillofacial specialist, it was determined that he facial paralysis.
Since then, he has done different types of therapy: he first had injections of Vitamin B and was taking B12 vitamins for a long time; he’s done a couple of rounds of physical therapy (lasting between 2 weeks to 1 month) where they did among other things a magnetic band, massage and other treatments and he was practicing at home, blowing bubbles, chewing gum, etc.
He’s also done a few rounds of acupuncture.
He took minimal breaks between the treatments, with the longest break being during the summer. He’s gone to check-ups with the initial specialist and with the physical therapist, who haven’t given much information, except maybe to wait a bit before starting something else or to continue doing acupuncture.
He’s also done lab work – checked his thyroid, regular bloodwork, an MRI and all the results have come back ok. The specialist said that he doesn’t believe it is virus-related since there were no other signs of a virus present in the body. He hasn’t done any recent lab work – all of this was at the beginning.
He is continuing to have problems and claims that everything is getting worse – he is having greater problems with his eye and is using eye drops, but his eye waters, has trouble closing it; also has issues when he drinks or eats and I believe he may be developing synkinesis or something similar because he will show me how if he moves one part of his face, his cheek with also go up..
so, my question is what is a next step that he could try or what else can he do in order to help improve it or at least stop the paralysis from getting worse?
