Taipei City Government

Ms. Chen, 60 years old, suddenly suffered from lopsided mouth and eye in the left side of the face after having a cold which had lasted for one month, on top of having overworked; thus, she came to seek medical help last December. She regained normal facial appearance within 2 weeks under the physician’s Chinese medicinal treatment and acupuncture three times a week and finally recovered fully within 1 month.
Students who are busy with examinations and reports or office workers with heavy workload may suddenly suffer from symptoms under the cold weather, such as lopsided mouth and eye in one half of the face, with one of the eyes being unable to close.
Lin Chia-Ying, attending doctor of the Chinese Medicine Department in Taipei City Hospital, says that when there are only symptoms such as lopsided mouth or incompletely closed eye, which are not accompanied by limb activity disorder, numbness or disturbance of consciousness, it can be judged that patients are not having a stroke, but rather, they may be suffering from facial nerve paralysis. Bell’s palsy is the most common peripheral facial nerve paralysis.
Bell’s palsy is quite common and there may be 15-30 cases among every 100,000 people every year. People of any age can be attacked by the disease, who usually have flu-like symptoms prior to the attack. The main symptoms of Bell’s palsy comprise lopsided mouth, incompletely closed eye, disappearance of forehead wrinkles, drooling when drinking, etc. About 80% of the patients can recover.
Dr. Lin says that Bell’s palsy is equivalent to the invasion of pathogenic factors in the meridian in Chinese medicine. Pathogenic factors will invade the meridian and block qi and blood circulation owing to the deficiency of body energy. Patients can go to the Neurology Department for examination first at the onset, and receive the combined Chinese medicine acupuncture. Often, the lopsided mouth and eyes condition can be improved significantly after several acupuncture therapies.