Lower lip twitching

[Crystal]

Hello,

I am about a 8 months post-translab.  The last couple of weeks I have developed very irritating lower lip twitch, just right in the middle. Hard to notice but it feels like someone is pulling on my lip.  It seems to increase when I have a cup of tea.  My frown line on the right side of my mouth also barely pulses involentarily, on and off during the day.  I have been chewing gum at work so I don't have to worry about it.

Anybody else experiance stuff like this and have it go away? Weird to have it do this now.  I felt some slight pulling in my face on that side for a few months after surgery but it went away. darn.

[Mary 117]

Hi Crystal
About a year after surgery I started the twitching, then it varied from lip, cheek and eye twitching. That seemed to go on for about a year and now it rarely happens anymore. I thought it was just the nerves firing up after their mini-vacation. I still have mild, mild facial numbness and no one notices the crooked smile except me. If it gets really bad, talk with your doc. Mine gave me some facial exercises that they use for bells palsey and they seemed to help.

Mary

2cm AN middle fossa, HEI, Dr Brackmann, 05/24/05

[Crystal]

Well... my lip twitching turned into a 24 hour a day pulsing of my smile line and soft tissue under my eye twitching.  Scared me badly.  I called House and the doctor called me back and indicated it was likely scar tissue.  Doc said to give it a couple of weeks and it would likely go away.  He put me on a 5 day course prednisone. 

Given the failure I had with radio surgery I did not believe them that it would go away....however this morning I woke up and the twitching is totally gone and my face has been normal all day, praise God and my doctors!

It will be a year in December since my translab.

[Boppie]

Crystal, 20 months post op and I have lower lip twitching almost every night when I start to sleep.  I had only facial weakness for 6 weeks, and all recovered completely.  But the twitches are there especially when I have a cold.  It is comforting to think this is only scar tissue.  I have a second year MRI in November. 

[Crystal]

Boppie -- Very interesting that your twitching is at night and during colds.  This morning when I first got up the soft part of my eye tissue twitched a bit for about a 10 minutes and then went away.  I guess the wires must get crossed somehow.  If you get any feed back from your physician on cause I would be very interested to know. 


Thanks.
   

[4cm in Pacific Northwest]

Last week I went shopping on-line at the AN store

https://secure.baxinternet.com/~anausa/for_sale.html

I bought a few booklets, pins etc

One booklet:

The Facial Nerve and Acoustic Neuroma: Possible Damage and Rehabilitation (AN4)

Pertains to this post specifically.

Quoting page 6 A. Exercises and Massage

“DO NOT chew gum as this promotes asymmetry� (revised Feb 2007)



I met with my newly assigned (by my Stanford team) ‘follow up’ post op doctor here in Oregon. (BTW Dr. Anh is very personable- I’ll give him a ‘thumbs up’)
http://www.ohsu.edu/ent/ear/nguyenhuynh.html

He said that before facial palsy starts to resolve it is often reported, by AN patients, to get some twitching (I am taking this as a good sign). He said once this starts to happen (as well as my wrinkles returning) then it is time to start therapy exercises.

I am thinking that the TWITCHING IS ACTUALLY SOMETHING TO BE CELEBRATED- and the GUM CHEWING TO BE AVOIDED.

Dear God-Please bring on the twitching- I SO need a sign this facial palsy will resolve.

“4�
(The impatient patient)

[Crystal]

4 - Good to know about the gum.  Thanks for the info! -c

[zjane]

Hi Crystal -

For the past couple of days, my nose has been twicthing a little like someone's pushing the tip of my nose.  I'm not too concerened because about one month ago for a week I had this twitching below my lip and it even made a dimple so if I stared at the mirror I could see the dimple go on and off.   I contributed these to nerve re-generating/re-wiring.

I remember when I was first out of the surgery 3 months ago, I had nothing on my AN side but a twitching under the eye.  And the doctors said because they saw the twitching they KNEW my face would complete come back.  So I have to echo 4cm and say twitching is a good thing and if it happens again not to worry.

Jane

[sreda]

This was an intersting thread for me to find today.
I am 3+ years post op for AN removal (midfossa) and have just in the last week had tingling in my upper lip. Just intermittently, and only a very small area. It's a tingling , not a twitching or flutter.

Anyone else ever have this sensation, this long after surgery?

Sis