Biology Summative Assessment – Bell’s Palcy – Udhav Kothari

Bell’s Palsy is a disease which occurs when your facial nerve is damaged, it causes weakness to half of your face. Identification of it is simple, try simple facial expressions, smiling, frowning, lifting eyebrows, or winking. It may also cause you to drool or ear pain. If you experience such symptoms, It is recommended that you see a doctor, because it is possible that you may have a stroke.

Normally, disease is temporary and lasts only a few days, but rare cases have seen permanent damage, to cure this, you will have to transplant your facial nerve, the best available treatment is transplanting your facial nerve with your own nerve from the leg called sural nerve, which relays sensory information from your lower calf, and your gracilis muscle, from your lower thigh. After the surgery the patients have seen drooling, scars, and the operation success may be seen after 3-6 months, there is also a 1 in 20 chance that there will be a clot or infection formed during the experiment.

However successful the operation might be, there will still be something left, you will experience tremendous amount of pain for 72 hours after the surgery. During those 3-6 Months, Socially, Strangers around you may feel uncomfortable around you because of your asymmetric face, (Economic)financially, this will cost you at least 15000 USD for the surgery, plus all medications, A Steroid called Prednisone is effective to treat Bell’s Palsy, but it is deemed illegal in some countries like India, and Mexico, so you are politically commiting a crime, which can fine you 1L and give you 10 years in jail.

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