I interrupt the cheery news of belly pics and baby showers to give you the sad update on my health.
On the positive side, baby is fine. (As far as I know, he’s still kicking…)
Remember I told you guys about more than a week ago about the insect that flew in my ear? Well, the ear problem hasn’t really gone away. The week after we went to the doc I wasn’t really good about doing those drops.
I was feeling good for a day or two and forgot to put them in. Then I got worried and started using them again. And it hurt. I could literally feel the liquid going down my canal. And I started wondering if I was allergic to this stuff. So I stopped using it over the weekend.
But by Monday it still hadn’t gone away. So I decided to step things up and do the drops every two hours.
Unknown to me, my face was slowly transforming. My mom mentioned that it looked a bit swollen. I didn’t really pay attention. Sometimes when I touch the dogs and touch my eyes I get a bit swollen and it will sort itself out. Even later when I started feeling numb, it just reminded me of those times when you go to the dentist and it doesn’t last long, and it will get sorted out.
That’s until my mom started going on the internet and told me this could be a problem that would take MONTHS to sort out and we must go back to the doc the next day.
THAT’s when I started stressing a bit. MONTHS? You are kidding me….
For those of you unfamiliar with Bell’s palsy, it basically means that half your face is paralysed. Fortunately mine isn’t total. I can still close my lips together. I can’t hold all the water in when I brush my teeth. Your eyes start going dry because you can’t blink properly (on the one side). You can’t do simple things like smile properly (it looks like a smirk, because the one side can’t go up), and frowning with your eyebrows isn’t in sync.
So anyway off we go to the GP again. He looked at my ears: good news: looking much better. (Had to be due to all that two hourly drops I had been catching up with!). And yes, he said it was Bell’s palsy. He proscribed Vit B, cortisone and eye drops. And he said he would phone the ENT and also said I had to go to the physiotherapist. But also good news: he seemed to think this would take days/ a week to come right. Whew….
So upstairs I went (this is at a Medicross where they have many health disciplines together) and fortunately there was someone available to take me right away. It was very soothing. He basically massaged my face. Then he gave me all these exercises to do. It’s like: opening and shutting your eyes. Frowning. Pursing your lips. Stuff normal people take for granted, but now I have to “teach my face” as it were… Fun times…
Dr G interrupted us all excited to say he’d phoned the ENT who was now convinced that what I had was Ramsy Hunt syndrome. But my mother didn’t seem to think so. Apparently that strain is like having shingles in your ear which would then affect the facial nerve. I do think that the ear and the face are linked, but hopefully not in that way. I have also Googled to find out that it can crop up independently in the last trimester, so it could be one of those quirky pregnancy things too.
However we went home to have lunch and tried to get hold of this ENT, who (of course) was very busy. But on the second phone call mom got through and was able to speak in all her medical language to him. And convince him that this wasn’t what he thought it was, and that there wasn’t the urgency to rush over. Just increase the cortisone dose.
Nevertheless I am still going to see him tomorrow. And get that ear checked out properly. Even though Dr G seemed to think it was all clear, I am still experiencing some pain there and still doing the drops (now it’s ear drops and eye drops) regularly around every two hours.
Suffice to say, I feel like a medical basketcase. All I do these days is lie in bed and go to doctors. Literally.
But I can’t complain. I have a kicking baby inside me and he’s telling me to hang in there this last week. Whatever gets thrown at me, just knowing he is waiting on the other side of all this nonsense is keeping me sane.
Oh my goodness. I hope it’s just a weird pregnancy thing after all – there seem to be more of those than anyone could imagine! Good luck with the next week – you sound like you have the perfect attitude for hanging in there, but it can’t be easy!
Oh poor little you…hope it all gets better in a heartbeat…thinking of you xxxx
Oh no! So sorry to read of these health challenges. Take good care of you!
Oh my gosh! I hope that there is resolution in a matter of days/weeks than months! Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks!
Saw this on LFCA and scurried over to see what was up. Please make sure you see the ENT! Branches of your facial nerve run right through your middle ear and can very much be affected. I don’t know about it being Ramsay Hunt, but you should certainly see an ear person and let them take a look. Email me if you want to talk ears. I do it for a living. 🙂
Oh no — I am so sorry, though of course please frame that in the general “thank goodness your little one is thriving” framework. Still, what an annoying situation (to say the least) in which to find yourself. For whatever it’s worth, I had a family member some years back who had developed Bells Palsy except then it turned out he hadn’t and as I recall — and it was ages ago, I’m afraid — his symptoms resolved more or less on their own. Sorry, that’s very vague and it’s possible I have it wrong (I can, however, tell you with certainty that he is fine now), but the point is, I hope this turns out just to be some oddity that can/will resolve on its own, and promptly.
I just want to send some words of encouragement your way! I had bells palsy duringmy pregnancy last year. It certainly wasn’t fun but lucky it went mostly away after about 3 weeks. I am hoping the same got you and if you have any questions feel free to email me.
Goodness, I hope like me you were lucky enough for it to go away after a couple of weeks? I noticed mine two days before my planned C-Section and what a scary ordeal that was. I was so happy to hear that it couldn’t hurt my little babies. However, it did last for over three weeks and until today I still wish I had some pretty mommy and baby photos of those first couple of weeks. Have been wondering what the chances are of getting it again in a future pregnancy, it scares me a little to be honest.
Shame, I am so sorry that you also had it. It actually did last months but the worst was over by about 3 months, 4 months even better. I am convinced it was linked to sleep because it would improve when my sleep improved! Sheesh, I really hope not again, mostly because of the eye thing – that was awful.