When Lisa (patient’s name changed), an 83-year-old Hispanic female, noticed that the right side of her face was sagging, she immediately called her primary physician. The diagnosis was quick: she had Bell’s palsy, what one researcher calls “an intriguing condition.”

In the 200 or so years since anatomist Charles Bell noticed the phenomenon – a loss of feeling in one side of the face that occurs in a short time, anywhere within two hours to two days -- in the 1820s, little is known about it. It comes suddenly without a known cause, it affects only one side of the face, and, as might be expected, it has no widely agreed upon treatment. The big medical debate is between using antivirals or steroids, though thorough tests have yet to be done and neither has shown a strong success. Nevertheless, even without treatment or with minimal treatment, about 80 percent of Bell’s palsy sufferers see some improvement within three months.

A “cure” is still a problem as the cause remains unknown. “Some of the recent work using MRI and ultrasound scanning of the facial nerve certainly indicates there’s an inflammatory process going on, and that would fit the finding that corticosteroid treatment appears to have a beneficial effect, but it could still be that there is an infective agent. There’s more work to be done to move the debate forward, ” Dr. Pauline Lockhart told Chemist & Druggist magazine.

In China, however, acupuncture is regularly used to treat Bell’s palsy. Recent research indicates it is highly effective. Tong and his colleagues saw 96.4 percent improvement among Bell’s palsy patients treated with acupuncture as opposed to 86.5 percent improvement for patients treated with steroids and 89.5 percent improvement for patients treated with conventional treatment.

To return to our test case, Lisa was disturbed when her physician recommended waiting and said that the probability of recovering at least in part were high simply through the passage of time. She hated the way her face looked and wanted to be proactive the treatment for the malady.

Despite a minor needle phobia, Lisa agreed to see an acupuncturist. Lisa felt improvement from the first treatment and within two months of twice weekly treatments had almost completely recovered.

References

“Clinical: All change in the treatment of Bell’s palsy.” Chemist & Druggist, December 12, 2009.

Finsterer, J. et al. Summarization of report on research on Bell Palsy Therapy. Drug Week, September 26, 2008.

Tong FM, et al. “A prospective randomised controlled study on efficacies of acupuncture and steroid in treatment of idiopathic peripheral facial paralysis.” Acupunct Med. 2009 Dec;27(4):169-73.

Zhou M, et al. “Acupuncture for Bell's palsy.” J Altern Complement Med. 2009 Jul;15(7):759-64.

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