Frozen Face 4: Feedback

I had a shock today, albeit a pleasant one. The GP I saw last week about my frozen face, Dr C, actually phoned me up to find out how I was. This was the first time I GP had ever phoned me to find out my condition. Kudos to her. I'm afraid she's young and she'll learn to be cynical and not bother in future.

I said there was no change and she said that her brother-in-law had developed the same problem as me and had no noticed any improvement despite taking the same steroids. She said that he been taking 60 mg of prednisolone instead of the 30 mg, I'm taking. She had asked him where he had got that figure from. As he's a doctor, himself, he decided to super-size his dose and wrote out a double-dose prescription for himself. Of course, she said, she wanted to protect me from the side-effects but hopefully my body has had a week to resist them and can now be in a good position to resist the downside of a double-dose.

As I've received a bottle of 100 minute 5 mg tablets, I calculate I still have 52 tablets left, which should allow me to have 4 days of doubled doses, which is 2 days more than the recommended course.

Face Frozen 3: Hell's Bell

I phoned up to see a doctor in the morning but they were booked up.

I phoned up in the afternoon and finally got an appointment. It was at 15:40 but I had to wait till 16:15.

The doctor was very young - late 20s or early 30s and she was quick to diagnose. She printed out a sheet of information of the Net and read it out to me. Sir Lancelot wouldn't be doing that.

The doctor said I had Bell's Palsy. This is an inflammation of the nerves to the face. It wasn't a stroke or Lyme's disease. So, there's a good chance it will clear up but it could take several weeks to several months.

She was slower to prescribe. Steroids improve the chance of recovery but she didn't know how much I should take so she rang several doctors to find out. Is that a sign of poor training, lack of experience or conscientiousness? I don't know but it's the first time a doctor has ever done that in front of me. In the past, they've usually left the room.

I'm to take 30 mg of prednisolone but they come in minute 5mg capsules so I need to carefully count out 6 of them without dropping them. Finding them would be difficult as I can't close my right eye and it's getting very teary. So, I have to go for the Snake Plissken look and wear an eye-patch.

Unfortunately, the one I have seems to be for mini-Me and barely covers my eyeball, let along the whole eye.

I thought that wearing that I won't be able to drive because of the lack of stereoscopic vision to judge distance but the doctor said one-eyed people can drive. That explains the tail-gaters behind me, I think.