Bell S Palsy

A steroid drug long given to treat the facial paralysis of Bell's palsy improves the rate of recovery, but the antivirus drug acyclovir does not, researchers reported Wednesday. Bell's palsy, which affects the nerve feeding the facial muscles, is relatively rare. In affects up to one in 2,500 people per year, stripping the smile of its symmetry and robbing the eye of its ability to close.

Baylor women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey has been diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a form of facial paralysis. Baylor is in the women's Final Four and will play Stanford on Sunday. Mulkey told the Boston Globe that before practice Wednesday, she noticed only the left side of her mouth was working when she smiled, her right eye was drooping and she couldn't hear properly out of her right ear. "When I smile it's crooked and when I talk, and talk loud, the hollowness in my hearing is weird," Mulkey told the Associated Press.

Back at her desk on a Monday morning following a business trip to New York, Rock Fever magazine editor Judy Wieder set to work on a story about Boy George, the pop singer. Wieder soon noticed some tension in her face, and figured it must be the last traces of a 24-hour flu. The editor left the page she was working on in the typewriter and went to the kitchen of her compact Venice apartment, which doubles as an office. She heated some soup and tried to swallow a spoonful.

As the deadline approached for her science project last spring, Culver City fifth-grader Kiana Deane chose a familiar subject: herself. Since birth, she had been afflicted with an uncommon form of paralysis called Bell's palsy that left her unable to smile. As far back as she could remember, children would stare at the empty look on her face and ask: What's wrong with you? She decorated her science poster with photographs of her own face, staring outward with that blank, emotionless look of fashion models whom she admired because their expressions were like her own. Her project was also a plea for her classmates to look behind her face to the girl inside.

As the deadline approached for her science project last spring, Culver City fifth-grader Kiana Deane chose a familiar subject: herself. Since birth, she had been afflicted with an uncommon form of paralysis called Bell's palsy that left her unable to smile. As far back as she could remember, children would stare at the empty look on her face and ask: What's wrong with you? She decorated her science poster with photographs of her own face, staring outward with that blank, emotionless look of fashion models whom she admired because their expressions were like her own. Her project was also a plea for her classmates to look behind her face to the girl inside.

When Curtis Strange realized on Christmas Eve that the left side of his face was paralyzed, the fact that he hadn't won a PGA Tour event since the 1989 U.S. Open became a minor detail in his life. "I couldn't move my left eye and I had to talk like this," Strange said, twisting his mouth into a grotesquely distorted shape to show the effects of Bell's palsy. Strange has full movement in his face again and Thursday at Miami he also showed signs of the golf game that made him one of the most feared players in the late 1980s, shooting a 68 to share the first-round lead of the Doral-Ryder Open with Mark Calcavecchia, Bob Tway, Mike Brisky and Ronnie Black.

Baylor women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey has been diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a form of facial paralysis. Baylor is in the women's Final Four and will play Stanford on Sunday. Mulkey told the Boston Globe that before practice Wednesday, she noticed only the left side of her mouth was working when she smiled, her right eye was drooping and she couldn't hear properly out of her right ear. "When I smile it's crooked and when I talk, and talk loud, the hollowness in my hearing is weird," Mulkey told the Associated Press.

A steroid drug long given to treat the facial paralysis of Bell's palsy improves the rate of recovery, but the antivirus drug acyclovir does not, researchers reported Wednesday. Bell's palsy, which affects the nerve feeding the facial muscles, is relatively rare. In affects up to one in 2,500 people per year, stripping the smile of its symmetry and robbing the eye of its ability to close.

When Curtis Strange realized on Christmas Eve that the left side of his face was paralyzed, the fact that he hadn't won a PGA Tour event since the 1989 U.S. Open became a minor detail in his life. "I couldn't move my left eye and I had to talk like this," Strange said, twisting his mouth into a grotesquely distorted shape to show the effects of Bell's palsy. Strange has full movement in his face again and Thursday at Miami he also showed signs of the golf game that made him one of the most feared players in the late 1980s, shooting a 68 to share the first-round lead of the Doral-Ryder Open with Mark Calcavecchia, Bob Tway, Mike Brisky and Ronnie Black.

Back at her desk on a Monday morning following a business trip to New York, Rock Fever magazine editor Judy Wieder set to work on a story about Boy George, the pop singer. Wieder soon noticed some tension in her face, and figured it must be the last traces of a 24-hour flu. The editor left the page she was working on in the typewriter and went to the kitchen of her compact Venice apartment, which doubles as an office. She heated some soup and tried to swallow a spoonful.