07/05/2023
There’s a nerve called Facial nerve which traverses through our ears on its passage from the brain to the face. The primary function this nerve is to control the muscles of the face concerned with facial expressions, two major functions out of which is the eye opening and maintaining the symmetrical smile.
In cases of fall from heights or road traffic accidents, this nerve gets injured if the person gets impact on the ears. This results in paralysis of the nerve.
Patients often come to us with one sided paralysis of the face, inability to close eyes, asymmetrical smile, inability to chew food on one side, watering from eyes etc,as evident from the picture below.
There’s is a surgical management available called Facial nerve decompression wherein the nerve is relieved off the pressure from the fractured bone pieces or at times a new nerve segment is grafted if there’s a big tear on the Facial nerve.
This patient presented with a Grade V paralysis on the Left side, things did not improve much after 10days of medical management. We decided to proceed for the surgery and the result was quite regarding.
Otology is magic!