Why does a face droop during a stroke? Is a stroke the only thing that causes this ‘phenomenon’?
In: Biology
During a stroke parts of your brain recieve little to no oxygen causing them to stop working properly/at all and can lead to cell death if starved of oxygen for long enough. This being said the reason why one half of the face droops, your speech is slurred you have difficulty understanding/reading/recognizing stuff… all those symptoms depend on what area/s of your brain are affected. The reason only one half of the face becomes paralyzed is due to the fact that our faces are split into two halfs when youre looking at only the nervous system, one right and one left bundle of nerves supporting their side. If the area of the brain which controls one of these nerve groups is affected these nerves will no longer recieve the correct or any signals from the brain meaning you have no control over it meaning it is paralyzed.
This can be either temporary (if treatment can be administered in time) or permanently depending on the damage and cell death due to the lack of oxygen
Your face has muscles, some of which you have conscious control over (like the ones for smiling, frowning, raising your eyebrows, etc) and some of which you don’t. When you have a stroke, the nerves that supply “strength” to different muscle groups can become damaged. The way the nerves are arranged, it’s often just one side. When the nerves that supply your face become damaged, the affected muscles go limp and give the face a droopy appearance.
Anything that affects the nerves of the face can cause facial droop. That can include a stroke, a TIA (mini stroke), or bells palsy, where something just irritates the nerves and they just stop working for a while.
I don’t know exactly why face drooping occurs in a stroke, but it can happen during a specific migraine: hemiplegic migraine- in which the migraine effects the motor center of the brain and causes one side of the face to droop, along with temporary paralysis of one side of the body, which is also a stroke symptom.
I think other people explained about strokes well enough already
Once you have had the chicken pox virus it will live dormant inside you. If it is reactivated it can cause Ramsay hunt syndrome and will cause paralysing of the same side of the face as the infection. There are also rashes and blisters.
Someone else mentioned bells palsy and that can be caused by chicken pox virus too! But can be caused by other viruses too.
Bell’s Palsy can also cause sudden drooping on one side of the face. I think it is important to get to an ER as fast as possible if you’re ever not sure of the cause, though. Good to be safe. Time is the most important if it truly is a stroke.
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