Returning a beautiful smile to people with facial palsy

Facial palsy is a disfiguring disease, often caused by inflammation, trauma, etc. The main manifestations are crooked mouth, incomplete eyelid closure, dull facial expression, speech inconvenience, and food retention in the affected side of the mouth, resulting in an ugly face. It brings great difficulties to patients’ life, work and social life, and makes patients lose confidence and courage to participate in social life, and even suffer from pain. The earlier the treatment of facial palsy, the better: early treatment of facial palsy can be applied to neurotrophic drugs, facial nerve decompression, Chinese acupuncture and physiotherapy, etc. If the facial paralysis lasts for more than 2 years and the function of facial expression muscle still has not recovered significantly, it is clinically called “late facial paralysis” or “old facial paralysis”, and these patients can only repair the deformity of their facial expression through plastic surgery. What are the treatment methods of facial palsy? 1.Application of simple suspension method can correct the skewed state of the face at rest, but when the face moves, the mouth and eyes will reappear, and a symmetrical smile cannot be formed. 2.Application of nerve free transplantation method Anastomosis with the normal facial nerve on the opposite side, application of thin femoral muscle, pectoralis minor muscle, latissimus dorsi muscle, etc., carrying the vascular nerve of the muscle for anastomosis vascular and nerve transplantation, reconstruction of the main facial power, can restore 80% of the patient’s facial power, with the corner of the mouth and facial side power mainly, can form a more symmetrical smile with the opposite side. How long does it take for the treatment to heal? The surgery needs to be performed in two phases: Phase I: free nerve graft is performed and anastomosed with the normal buccal branch of the lateral nerve. Six months later, the second stage of surgery is performed to anastomose the muscle graft of the vascular nerve and anastomose it with the branch of the normal lateral nerve. After the surgery is completed, facial power is gradually developed and 80% of muscle strength is restored after one year. The first stage of surgery requires about 7 days of hospitalization and the second stage requires about 7 to 10 days of hospitalization. The application of this method has taken the treatment effect of facial palsy one step further and has reached a state that can approximate a normal appearance and can give back a near normal smile to patients with facial palsy, solving their social difficulties and psychological barriers.