Facial Numbness Officially Diagnosed

For the last week, I've been dealing with an odd problem. I woke up last Friday morning with the lower left half of my face numb. No other symptoms, but it seemed weird. I called my doctor, and was told there were no available appointments for almost a week, but that I should go to the hospital to get checked out because facial numbness can be a sign of serious things.

 As I often do, I took to Facebook and asked my assorted family and friends if they had ever experienced numbness like this or knew what it could be. I was greeted by a barrage of messages to go to the ER immediately.That seemed really overdramatic so instead I went to the local MinuteClinic in a CVS. Btw, it was more like "90 Minute Clinic" but I digress.

At the MinuteClinic, the nurse practitioner said she suspected it was Bells Palsy, but she seemed very nervous and didn't want to make a definitive diagnosis without absolutely ruling out anything more serious, so she advised me to go to the emergency room right away. This is what I was trying to avoid. I have four kids, the oldest is seven. The idea of sitting in a hospital for hours with four kids didn't seem like something I really wanted to do. And it all just seemed so dramatic...I mean I'm 37, this couldn't really be anything serious, right? All I really wanted was for someone to say, oh that? Don't worry about that, it's no big deal. But no one was saying that.

Luckily, I have great friends, family and a man I love to help me out. Within an hour people were offering to sit with the kids, keep me company at the hospital, whatever I needed. So in the end I didn't have to bring the kids with me after all. Thank God!

It took over four hours in the ER. I had a CAT scan of my head, an x-ray of my head, and a ton of bloodwork. At the end of it all, the doctor said all the tests had come back clean and he was pretty much at a loss. It could be some kind of nerve impingement, could be early Bells Palsy...he didn't know. He advised me to follow up with a neurologist. (The closest neurologist appointment I could get is two and a half months away, BTW.)

I was sent home with pretty much no answers. Over the next six days, things got worse. Soon the numbness spread up my face and my left eye began to tear for no reason. My ear and head on that side began to ache.  The left side of my throat became numb, it felt like I'd been sucking on a Halls cough drop all night. I was miserable. I called my own doctor several more times trying to get in sooner, but no dice.

Finally this Thursday, two days ago, I got in for my appointment. I wanted to cry with relief - I was so uncomfortable by then. It took all of about five minutes for the doctor to find out what was going on. Apparently when you go to an emergency room, test results and your chart are electronically sent to your primary care physician.  As soon as my doctor looked at my tests, he said I had Lyme Disease, and that it had caused the Bells Palsy, which I definitely have. He said either the doctor didn't notice the Lyme result in my blood work, or those results came in after I had been discharged. Either way, I should have been told immediately so I could begin treatment. Lyme Disease is no laughing matter, and is irritatingly prevalent in Northern New Jersey.

I was prescribed a very strong antibiotic to take for the next month (which I started right away), and a twelve day course of steroids which I haven't started yet due to other issues I'm considering. The lesson I have learned from all this is that you HAVE to be proactive about your health and doctors don't know everything, they make mistakes too. Follow up after bloodwork to make sure your test results haven't slipped through the cracks, and if you don't feel better push for a second opinion, another test, etc.

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Either Bells Palsy, Lyme Disease or a doctor making an error with your care? Tell me about it in the comments below, please!