online therapy

[badbadbrain67]

I have weakness/paralysis to the left side of my face. My surgeon told me that the nerve was just "bruised", that he had tested it's integrity and that
it should improve with time. My surgery was on Dec 7 2009. I can already blink my eye and it shuts when I sleep. I can suck in my cheeks in, which I
definitely could not do during my rehab while I was in the hospital (I spent a little over two weeks there). I have only half a smile but I'm working on it
with therapy. I have problems with certain letters (p's and f's especially) and food and liquid falls out of my mouth sometimes when I eat. I have to see the
humor in thickened Ensure flying out of my mouth and unto my food plate.
As I mentioned before, I am going to therapy for this (as well as ot and pt) but my insurance only pays for a certain amount of time. After next month,
I'm on my own. My therapist gave me exercises I can do at home, but I'm looking for a little extra help.
I am wondering if anyone knows of any websites that offer tips, exercises and general help for people with temporary facial paralysis as a result of AN surgery. I searched with no luck. There seems to be a lot of sites regarding Bell's Palsy. Would these be of any help to us AN patients?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Lots of love to all of you,

Victor

[jazzfunkanne]

Hi, the bellspalsyinformation site, is really good there are a few AN patients on there too, the threads under the treatment section are helpful there is also a physio called todd who answers questions , i think he is on here as well

[Debbi]

Hi Victor-

As Jazz says, the bells palsy website has great information - go to http://www.bellspalsy.ws/ .   Usually with facial therapy, you go once or twice and then are on your own to do the work.  You should not have to use up a lot of your benefit visits for this. 

I totally relate to spitting food, slurring words and all the rest of the inconveniences of having a lazy face.  I still occasionally have problems with p's and b's, especially later in the day when I am tired.  If you can find humor, that's probably the best emotional medicine you can get.  The first time I ejected a mouthful of soup all over myself and the table - I spent about a second being horrified, and then just had to laugh.  What else can you do? 

Hang in there - and if you want to chat about any specifics, feel free to PM me.

Debbi