La neuróloga Evelyn Benavides, habla sobre la parálisis facial y da consejos para saber detectar síntomas de forma previa para así lograr una rápida recuperación.
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00:00The singer Justin Bieber confessed to having facial paralysis.
00:23And believe it or not, facial paralysis is a pretty common disease that could happen to anyone.
00:31In 2016, Angelina Jolie had her face paralyzed due to her personal problems and her separation from Brad Pitt.
00:44And actor George Clooney, applauded for his talent, lived for nine months a great facial paralysis in his youth.
00:50Stress, infections, tumors, wrong brain signals, virus or the famous air due to temperature change can be the cause of immobilizing part of the face. Is that so?
01:20And finally, to break this myth that it is attributed to the air, that it is not a change of current, this actually responds to a syndrome. How are you, doctor?
01:31Hello, look, the truth is that facial paralysis is a very common phenomenon, not like what happened here in the Ramsey Hunt, which is a more infrequent and more serious thing.
01:41But facial paralysis, called Bell Paralysis, which is a decrease in the function of the facial nerve, which is due in general to venous viral infections and has to do with low defenses,
01:56people of all ages, but it can happen at any age, produces that the functionality and movement of half of the face is lost and a part of the taste is also lost.
02:10In some people, half of the tongue ceases to feel taste and previous days they feel a pain behind the ear. It feels like a nuisance, like a pungent thing behind the ear on the same side.
02:20And that, in general, has a good prognosis and more or less in a month it is fixed if it is really that. You have to see that they are not other types of causes of facial paralysis.
02:33So the effect can happen.
02:35Yes.
02:37But on the other hand, you say that there are some symptoms before this happens. Can it be avoided if it is consulted in time?
02:43No, it cannot be avoided, but what can be consulted within the first few days and there the treatment, which in general is corticosteroids to lower this inflammation of the facial nerve, is fine.
02:56The later the consultation, more sequelae can remain. A person with more sequelae and differences between the two halves of the face.
03:05And this, as it has a different origin, also so that people know, it can happen in a person who is very stressed, it can be the precursor to a major problem. What should we consider?
03:19It can happen in people who are stressed because that lowers the defenses, therefore that increases the possibility of having a viral infection.
03:28And that can happen anywhere and there are people who can also have weight gain and other things, but in reality it is one of the risk factors.
03:37People who have diabetes have less defenses, people who are immunosuppressed for some reason too.
03:43But there are also other causes that are much less likely, but that are serious, which are lesions that are no longer peripheral, that are no longer outside the brain, but in the nuclei where the facial nerve originates.
03:56And there may be tumors or other things, but it is very rare, but it can happen.
04:02So, most people have very good recovery with corticosteroids in the first days and also with a lot of kinesiotherapy.
04:12As people do kinesiotherapy and a lot of exercise at home, which has to do with modulating, looking in the mirror and doing muecas, lifting eyebrows, inflating balloons, blowing candles.
04:28The more you do that, the better you will walk and take care of the eye on that side, because the eye tends to dry, that side decreases the production of tears.
04:36So you have to use artificial tears to make sure that the cornea does not make super painful erosions.
04:44In addition, with that special care.
04:46Now, to break down the myth, you finally tell us that this responds to different origins, but some people, especially because today we are in winter, it is cold.
04:56If a person drinks a hot cup of tea, a hot coffee, comes out cold, can it happen that a side of the face is paralyzed and says, I took the air?
05:06No, that is actually part of popular culture, but it has to do with the low defenses.
05:11It is not that due to temperature changes this occurs, but mainly it is due to viral infections that are mild.
05:22Except for this case, which is a special case, the one of Justin Bieber, which is actually a more serious pathology where vesicles are seen in the ear.
05:32It is a syndrome.
05:34Of course, because it has several symptoms that in the background vesicles are seen in the ear, which are not seen in the usual facial paralysis.
05:41The patient loses his hearing or is left with a distorted hearing.
05:45And it is a facial paralysis of more bad prognosis in the sense that it costs much more to recover than the normal one that does not have vesicles in the ear.
05:53So, when we talk about the virus, it is actually, as you say, the virus that has to do, for example, with the varicella or the crystal plague, which I understand is the same.
06:06And also the herpes zoster virus.
06:09It is that the herpes virus lives in the nervous endings once it gives us varicella or crystal plague.
06:16So practically we all have it.
06:1898% of the population in Chile has positive antibodies for the herpes virus, for varicella.
06:24But not so many people get rancid hang or herpes zoster.
06:32But it can happen in the same cases, when the defenses go down, when you are stressed, there are people who are diabetic,
06:38who are of the third age may have more propensity to have it.
06:43Perfect. Doctor, thank you very much for clarifying all those doubts.