facial palsy - facial nerve

[Guest guest]

Dear list-

does not seem to have any facial palsy, and when he was a neonate MRIs

were not the norm, so he does not have the extensive kind of diagnostic testing

infants do today.

I would greatly appreciate information to help fill in my gaps of understanding

from what I have heard the doctor say versus what I have experienced in a five

week old darling baby boy.

I heard the doctor say that on the first MRI the facial nerve was not present.

The second MRI either confirmed or disaffirmed that finding, so they will

default to the findings of the first MRI with regard to the facial nerve. The

doctor went on to explain that the nerves all on one side of the face would not

innervate - which is to mean the forehead, the eyebrow, the eyelid, the cheek

and the jaw. The face would be asymmetrical. It really sounded as though there

should be no movement at all.

Yet to watch this precious baby, certainly there is some asymmetry of expression

when yawning, and the darling smiles that one lives for are stronger on one side

or the other, but the eye on the affected side does close more often than not,

and there does not feel as though there is a complete absence of innervations to

one side of the infant's face.

Is this a case of the diagnostic and clinical do not paint the whole picture? I

would love to be able to provide a greater breadth and nuance of information to

the family on this.

Thank you so much in advance -

in love,

yuka