For me, there has been a curious correlation between Bell's Palsy and Multiple Sclerosis. I recall biting into a Carl's Jr. hamburger...the tang of the special sauce...the immediate tingling across my lips...the burning in my tongue...the lingering taste of metal. Later, an excruciating pain shot through my right ear and across my jawline, as if someone stabbed my eardrum with a javelin. The following morning, while brushing my teeth, the side of my mouth completely froze. I could not rinse or spit; my eye refused to close; the right side of my face paralyzed from forehead to shoulder top. Oddly, the stabbing pain simultaneously dimmed as the paralysis spiked. Diagnosis: Bell's Palsy.
An urgent care visit left me with an explanation that severe inflammation was apparently compressing the cranial nerve which controls facial muscle functions. The steroid therapy would hopefully help tame the symptoms, which could last anywhere from weeks to months. Within three weeks, the paralysis ended and I was able to retire my sexy, black pirate eye patch.
That was roughly 14 years ago. Looking back, I realize the tingling down my cheeks and around my lips and the burning in my tongue that I experience now each day appears to be a magnified extension of my initial episode. The symptoms never truly subsided, only progressed.
In the linked study below on Peripheral (Seventh) Nerve Palsy, "Fukazawa and colleagues reported facial palsy as first symptom of MS in 4.7% of 107 patients with MS." Hmmm. So, it is not too radical for me to question if Bell's Palsy was my first (unidentified) symptom of Multiple Sclerosis.
An interestingly mysterious connection...
https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/443681
