Tearing

[Dfcman]

  I have a gold weight in my eyelid so my eye closes and have/had eyedrops for dry eye.  The past few weeks, i've been having excessive tearing on my AN side.  My facial rehab therapist guy in Pittsburgh(Todd)  said it could be a good thing or bad thing.  He didnt really explain it too well, but he said that it could be a sign of nerves regenerating.  I am about 11 months post op and had a 12/7 nerve anastamosis about 7 months ago. 

For those of you who dont know, a 12/7 is a grafting of your tounge nerve to your lower facial nerve which controls smiling.  Its starting to work a little now.  You cant really see much, but it shows an improvement on an EMG when I touch my tounge in the roof of my mouth.  Kinda like sayin the letter "n   So basically like a starter and has to be used to kinda guide the smile.

Either way i'm assuming its a good thing (I like to try sometimes to be optomistic), but I just wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences.

Chris

[Lainie]

6 months after surgery I had excessive tearing. So much so that i went to the ER in case it was a Leakage. I was told it was the nerver regenerating. This carried on for a couple of months and then stopped. It returned a few weeks ago and I can now blink about 98%. Look on this as a positive thing and it will cost you a lot less in eye drops. I am just hoping mouth straightens out now. I was told that the eye is the last thing to work, has anyone else heard that?
Good luck
Lainie.

[nancyann]

Hi Chris:  Glad to hear the 12/7 is taking !!!!    I happened to also have excessive tears about 6-7 months out (like Lainie), & that was when my EMG showed the biggest jump.  Now, the tears are less frequent (except when I work out), this last EMG showed minimal improvement, but my doc still wants to hold off on the 12/7.   Again, so glad to hear you're improving, however slowly it happens.
Always good thoughts,  Nancy

[Pembo]

Chris, Isn't Todd the best? I learned so much from him.

My eye was completely dry for awhile and I've had some sporadic tearing, I always took it as a good sign. Best of luck to you.

[Dfcman]

Todd is a damn good man!  He sure knows his stuff.   I feel he knows  whats going on with my face more than I do.