I recently had a virus that for a couple of weeks gave me terrible headaches and all sorts of strange stabbing pains all over my body - ibuprofen relieved the symptoms entirely. However, right at the end of the illness I had a strange experience waking up in the morning - I realised half of my face had gone numb!

Of course, I was rather frightened about this and went straight to my GP. She did some tests on me, involving following her finger with my eyes and various other physical instructions. In the end she told me to go to the general hospital and book in for a brain scan and that I may have suffered a mild stroke.

I was very frightened at this point and made my way to the hospital at the other end of town. When I got there a nurse did virtually the same tests as the GP and told me it was Bell's Palsy and I was cured after just over a week's course of steroids.

After reading up on Bell's Palsy I realised it was quite common and I now suspect that it was a terrible diagnosis of the GP to not pick up on this. Any opinions, comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.