My side of my face feels asleep
 

About 6 weeks ago I noticed a strange feeling on the right side of my face. It felt like my right eye lid was heavy or still half asleep. It went away after a couple of hours but came back periodically. I saw my general physician and he prescribed antibiotics thinking it could be the start of a sinus infection. When there was no change after 5 days of antibiotics, he referred me to a neurologist. My neurologist did what I guess are the standard first visit tests and told me it may be a virus. To be safe, he wants me to get an MRI, which I am doing next week.

I have been trying to track my symptoms. There is no pain, just a numbness/pressure feeling. Usually, I feel it anywhere from different points of my right eye (from the outside corner, to the eye lid), on my right cheek and around my ear, the right side of my head and/or the right side of my neck. Again, there is no pain. It feels like there should be some drooping, but there is none. In the mirror, my face looks normal even when the feeling is most prominent. No vision problems either.

It also seems like lying on my right side brings it on. I usually have it the first few hours after I wake up (especially if I wake up on my right side) and it will come on if I lay on my couch on my right side after about 15 minutes.

I workout with weights pretty regularly and often tweek various parts of my back. I thought it might be the byproduct of a back or nect injury.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

jvree,

Hello and Welcome to NeuroTalk:welcome_sign:

I have very similar symptoms on my face. Mine is on the left side. I posted about my symptoms a while ago and I got a lot of good replies from people... maybe they will help you too, so here is a link to the post where I posted about my face -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=3398

Take care,
and Welcome to NeuroTalk :Wave-Hello:

Liz

Thanks. I read your post first and found it helpful. I guess the two things that seems to be different with me is that I wouldn't describe it as "tingly," though frozen is a good description. Second, mine definitely seems to come on when I lay on my right side, leading me to think it is something going on in my neck or back.

Do you have any other numbness, tingling going on anywhere else on you body?

Wow! That is practically the same thing I feel. I noticed it start several weeks ago and has progressively gotten more noticeable and has me in a panic. Mine is mostly on my left temporal area, but is also down the side of my face, in my upper neck/jaw, and around to the right temporal area. I went to my family doctor and performed some facial "exercises" which all "passed." Now, I am having dizzy spells and minor lack of balance issues.
You could say I am a hypochondriac, but I can't seem to shake the physical symptoms. Maybe mind mind is fabricating the whole thing, but I just don't believe that. My doc prescribed me Zoloft to help me battle my anxiety about it, but I haven't started that...not ready to go down that road. In his defense, I have had anxiety problems since elementary school. I feel like a mess. Did you ever come to any conlcusions on your issue? Can anxiety and depression cause these types of symptoms? ARGH!?! So frustrating!

Hi, everybody:

I have similar symptoms also. For example, when I sleep on the left side of my body, with the left side of my face lying on a pillow or directly on the bed, I noticed that, when I wake up, the left side of my face, including the left temporal area, left eyelid, left cheek, and left jaw, sometimes feel numb. When I touch the left side of my face, it does not feel the same as the right side of my face, which is not numb and has more feeling when I touch it. The same symptoms happen to the right side of my face when I sleep on the right side of my body, with the right side of my face lying on a pillow or directly on the bed. This does not happen everyday, but from time to time, whether I sleep during the day or during the evening, no matter how long I sleep. No one knows what is going on with me and how to treat me. I do not know if it could be linked to my being epileptic, even though I never had a seizure when these symptoms occurred. Frankly, I do not think these symptoms are caused by my epilepsy. I forgot to mention that, like Ipaulkelley, I also have a minor lack of balance. I do not have dizzy spells, but I have very strong headaches and fatigue when I wake up. Once again, I do not know if all these symptoms are linked and what causes them.