What are the early symptoms of hemifacial spasm?

We cannot avoid some diseases in our body, but if they appear in some hidden parts of the body, they can be cured through some relevant treatments. However, some facial diseases are very disturbing to people's lives. Because these facial diseases can have a great impact on people, it is difficult to accept the damage to their image. Facial spasm is one of them, but what are the early symptoms of facial spasm? We need to understand more specifically.

Primary hemifacial spasm usually occurs after middle age and is more common in women. In the early stage of the disease, the orbicularis oculi muscle on one side has paroxysmal involuntary twitching, which gradually and slowly spreads to other facial muscles on one side of the face. The twitching of the muscles at the angle of the mouth is the most noticeable. In severe cases, it may even affect the platysma muscle on the same side, but the frontalis muscle is less affected. The severity of the convulsions varies, and they are paroxysmal, rapid, and irregular. The convulsions are mild at first, lasting only a few seconds, and then gradually lengthen to several minutes or longer, while the intervals between convulsions gradually shorten and the convulsions become more frequent and severe.

In severe cases, the disease becomes rigid, causing the eye on the same side to be unable to open, the corner of the mouth to be crooked to the same side, and the person to be unable to speak. The disease is often aggravated by fatigue, mental tension, and voluntary movements, but the person cannot imitate or control the attack by himself. A convulsion can last from a few seconds to more than ten minutes, with intervals of varying lengths. The patient feels upset and unable to work or study, which seriously affects his physical and mental health.

Most convulsions stop after falling asleep. Bilateral facial muscle spasm is very rare. If there is, the disease usually occurs on both sides one after the other. After one side stops convulsing, the other side will start to convulse. Moreover, the convulsion on one side is lighter than that on the other side. There have been no reports of bilateral convulsions occurring at the same time. A small number of patients experience mild facial pain during convulsions, and some cases may be accompanied by ipsilateral headache and tinnitus.

The spasm intensity was graded according to the method developed by Cohen et al.

Grade 0: no spasm;

Grade 1: External stimulation causes increased blinking or mild facial muscle tremor;

Grade 2: Spontaneous slight tremor of eyelids and facial muscles, without functional impairment;

Grade 3: obvious spasticity with slight functional impairment;

Grade 4: Severe spasticity and functional impairment, such as the patient being unable to read because of inability to keep their eyes open and having difficulty walking alone. Neurological examination revealed no positive signs except paroxysmal twitching of facial muscles. A small number of patients may have mild paralysis of the affected side muscles in the late stage of the disease

The above is about the early symptoms of hemifacial spasm. Frequent facial twitching will affect our normal life, so timely treatment is needed. You can use medication or traditional Chinese medicine, that is, acupuncture treatment should be more effective. Because this is an early symptom of hemifacial spasm, it is not particularly serious.