Many people are familiar with a disease such as paresis of the facial nerve, otherwise it is also called facial neuritis. This disease is an inflammation of the facial nerve (one of its branches is affected, less often both).
Depending on the causes of paresis, 2 types are distinguished: primary and secondary. In the first case, paresis of the facial nerve appears as a result of constant and prolonged stresses that inevitably affect the nervous system, in this case the facial nerve suffers. It can also occur due to hypothermia. You can catch a cold in windy or rainy weather, so for those who are prone to frequent colds, it is important to monitor their 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, herpetic infections, mumps (otherwise mumps). There are cases when paresis develops after various injuries of the front part.
How to identify paresis of the facial nerve. Symptoms
Paresis does not appear immediately, but gradually. Initially, there may be painful sensations in the ear area, and after a couple of days, asymmetry of the face occurs (muscles twist towards the healthy half of the face). In some cases, pain appears upon palpation of the cheeks, forehead, and the area of the lymph nodes and lips. It is difficult for the patient to eat liquid food (since half of the lip does not close), he cannot cover one eye, he has a tingling sensation in the area of the inflamed nerve. Often a person loses susceptibility to taste, this occurs in connection with partial paralysis of the tongue.
Thus, with paresis, the following symptoms appear:
- asymmetry of the face, the corner of the mouth drops, the face twists toward the healthy half;
- soreness of the cheeks, forehead;
- numbness of the facial muscles, it is difficult to say smile, eat and make chewing movements;
- loss of taste;
- dry eyes (occurs 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 final diagnosis, many neurological experts conduct small tests with patients: they ask to smile, stretch out the lips with a tube, raise and lower the eyebrows, wrinkle your forehead, close and open your eyes. If the patient is difficult to perform the test or does not succeed, then he has paresis of the facial nerve.
Of course, you should not start treatment on your own. First of all, you need to consult a neurologist, only he will make the correct diagnosis and prescribe the necessary treatment.
At the very initial stage of the course of the disease, treatment consists of taking decongestants (this can be triampur, glycerol or furosemide), glucocorticoids (such as prednisone), necessarily intramuscular B vitamins and plus drugs are prescribed with a vasodilating effect.
Among other things, treatment, the patient himself is able to bring closer the moment of his recovery. For this, it is necessary to move the facial muscles as often as possible, as if to re-learn their movement. It is good if the patient builds various grimaces throughout the day, although this is ridiculous from the outside, but allows you to stretch the “sleeping” muscles. In addition, the patient himself can massage himself, make circular movements with his hands on the inflamed part of the face.
If secondary paresis of the facial nerve is observed, the treatment is a course of physiotherapy. Warming methods are prescribed by the neurologist himself. In addition to physiotherapy, massage of the affected muscles is necessary and physiotherapy exercises are required.
Surgical intervention is carried out only if the paresis of the facial nerve is caused by some kind of trauma, as a result of which a rupture of the nervous tissue has occurred.