Suddenly distorted face: Don't look down on

The article is professionally consulted by Master, Doctor Huynh An Thien - Department of Medical Examination & Internal Medicine - Vinmec Danang International General Hospital.

Sudden facial distortion is a symptom that often occurs when the weather turns cold, making many people bewildered with this abnormal condition of the body. However, in fact, the disease is not life-threatening and will heal after about 1-3 months if diagnosed and treated early. Besides, the biggest concern of the disease is the complications of movement and aesthetics later if not treated early.

Patients will often have a sudden facial distortion after a night of waking up, discovering that when brushing teeth or eating rice, water and food spill out, then when looking in the mirror, the face will be deformed to a different direction. beside. In addition, upon careful examination, the patient has the following symptoms:
Difficulty in laughing and talking; Asymmetrical face with one side of paralysis looks like a mask, natural lines such as wrinkles, nasolabial folds are blurred or lost, mouth and nuclei are distorted on the healthy side; In particular, when observing that the paralyzed side's eyes do not close tightly due to paralysis of the adductor muscles of the eyelids and the eyeball is pushed up to reveal a part of the white; Patients may also have a feeling of numbness on one side of the face, loss of taste in the front two-thirds of the tongue, dry eyes due to inability to produce tears, or increased tear secretion that causes tears to flow. The golden time for patients to be treated is before 72 hours after detecting symptoms, so it is very important to bring the patient to a medical facility during the golden time. In mild cases, patients can recover after 1 month, or recover well after 6-9 months with severe cases.

The main causes of facial distortion are the factors that cause 7th nerve palsy such as after accidents, trauma or tumor pathology, bacterial infections, viral infections and especially cold infections.
The mechanism of cold infection that causes 7th nerve paralysis is because the 7th nerve runs shallowest on the face, parallels the blood vessels in the ear, so when it is cold suddenly, it will cause rapid vasoconstriction, causing blood to not come to the blood supply. nutrients can damage the VII nerve. In addition, cold exposure leading to facial distortion is also an early manifestation of stroke when blood vessels suddenly constrict without enough blood supply to the brain.
In addition, it was found that this VII nerve palsy is also associated with some of the following viruses:
Herpes and genital herpes; Chickenpox and shingles; Epstein-Barr virus; Cytomegalovirus infection; Adenovirus; Rubella; Mumps virus ; Coxsackievirus.

Sudden facial distortion can occur at any age, but is more common in the following risk groups:
People who often stay up late, mentally and physically tired, causing nervous tension and poor resistance; People with weak physical condition, little exercise; People with a history of hypoglycemia, hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes or pregnant women; Alcohol abusers.

When the mouth is distorted, the face is paralyzed and there are suspicious signs such as: one side of the face is abnormally stiff, the mirror looks sagging and the mouth is distorted, the eyes are not closed, it is necessary to calm down and not immediately conclude that it is a stroke (cerebrovascular accident) to avoid confusion, but also need to go to medical facilities immediately for examination and early diagnosis, avoiding unnecessary complications.
When it is determined that facial distortion caused by cranial nerve VII palsy, there are many treatment methods indicated depending on the disease condition such as medical, acupuncture, acupressure or even surgery to connect the adjacent nerve branch. such as the nerve branch of the tongue, the cervical spine, or the fascia.
Physical therapy and acupuncture methods are only supportive, not treating the cause, but still play an important role in restoring the function of the nerves that supply the paralyzed side.
Patients who do not close their eyes will be prescribed to use more artificial eye drops to keep the eyes moist, along with that the patient must wear glasses or use an eye patch to avoid damage to the paralyzed eye.