Acupuncture for Facial Palsy

Facial Palsy managed with Acupuncture

Idiopathic Facial Palsy or Bell’s palsy, is a unilateral paralysis of your face. This condition is caused by dysfunction of your facial nerve which may be preceded by pain in the area behind the ear. It may result in either partial or complete paralysis of the facial mimics.

Types of facial nerve injury discussed in the article

• First degree injury: a bruise to the nerve that will heal relatively quickly (about eight weeks)
• Second degree injury: more severe and will begin to heal after several months
• Third degree injury: involves significant damage, healing is very slow and always incomplete

In addition to losing control of the facial muscles, there can also be symptoms like loss of taste, an inability to control salivation, and reduced sensations in the skin of the face.

Causes of Facial Paralysis

• Surgical damage
• Bacterial infections
• Physical trauma to the head
• Neurological conditions

More often, however, there is no obvious cause, despite detailed clinical and laboratory testing. 

Management of Facial Palsy with acupuncture

We can treat this condition with Acupuncture, alongside convectional drug therapy, in order to minimize the symptoms and to speed up recovery.

Acupuncture treatment is a holistic approach which addresses any imbalances, deficiencies, or excesses in the body in order to restore function to the facial nerve and muscles

The literature has demonstrated the efficacy of this therapy, using  electromyography, to confirm that acupuncture combined with electrical stimulation can reverse peripheral facial paralysis in a short period of time. 

References

• Zhou Y, Huang G, Luo C, Huang Z, Dai A, Zhang X, et al. (2022) Efficacy and safety of electric acupuncture in treatment of intractable facial paralysis: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0278509.
• Canan Ertemoğlu Öksüz, Ahmet Kalaycıoğlu, Özlem Uzun, Şahi Nur Kalkışım et al. The Efficacy of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Bell’s Palsy Sequelae, Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies, Vol12, Issue 4,2019.
• Qin Y, Yang L, Zhang M, Bai Y, Li Z, Zhao N, Li Z, et al. Efficacy evaluation and mechanism study of electroacupuncture intervention in acute phase of IFP: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.Trials. 2021 Sep 28;22(1):663.