How odd that you should mention pain in the face. Twelve years ago, in 1995, I got a case of Bells Palsy. I thought I had a stroke, went to the ER and he explains "no, you have Bells Palsy". I said "why"?? and he said "because of your diabetes. ?????? That was a new one for me.

But what annoyed me to no end was the pain in my face. I was on the phone at midnight with some doctor and I was crying and they were trying to calm me down and they were trying to explain that there are tri-geminal nerves in the face, and that these nerves can get inflamed. etc. etc.

I never fully understood this, and the odd thing is that I know many people who had Bells Palsy and none of them had pain. They just had one half of their face paralyzed for the length of their Bells Palsy.

My friend Mary, still has the mouth drooping and it's 20 years later.

My Aunt Annette had to wear a special pair of glasses to keep one eye open after her bout of bells palsy.

Every person I spoke to, well, they never had what I had.

The horrible pain in the face.

Jeez, I will never forget that pain if I live to be 100. The doctor told me to take advil, or ibuprofen. All I wanted to do was lay down and die that first night. I had no idea what hit me.

I put warm compresses, (and because this happened on Palm Sunday), I went the religious route, and I kept pressing the Palms to my face. I swear to god, this is what I did.

A few days later I went to see a neuro person. He took one look at me and says: "you have to have an emg of your face". Now I knew what that was and I was not a happy camper aobut having to have an emg on my face".

He explained that they needed to measure the nerve damage (or some such stuff, this was a long time ago).

Want to know what happened. I was so scared of the emg that I prayed for two weeks straight. I put warm compresses, I took advil.

My appointment for the emg was 3 weeks from that neuro appointment. In two weeks, my face was almost back to normal. No more drooling, No more drooping eyes.

I took a walk over to the neuro guy and he said "oh wow, look at you" and I said "I will not have any emg done". He said "no problem".

But the funniest thing happened way after this.

To look at me one would not know that I ever had Bells Palsy. At least that is what I thought.

Years passed by and I found myself back at a new primary care and the neuro guy I had seen was sharing office space. He was an Asian Doctor.

When i walked in (this was about 2 years after the Bells Palsy thing), I was sitting in the waiting room, the neuro comes in, I recognized him and I said "Oh I know you, I saw you a few years ago". He smiled, took one look at me and said "oh, yeah, you had Bells Palsy". I said "now how on earth can you tell? When I look in the mirror I don't see any change" He laughed and said "look at your eyebrow and then compare it to the other one". I looked in the mirrow and there was just the most imperceptable difference, and I said "Oh yeah, I can see it" From that day on, I compare my eyebrows.

Some days, one is higher than the other one.

Nerves in the face are really nasty when they get inflamed (for any reason).

Thank god, my pain only lasted two weeks.

So I hope you find your answers and get pain relief.

All the best,

Melody