Your Face
Have you ever tried to exercise your face? Over the last three years while waiting for the facial nerves to regenerate I’ve had the pleasure of figuring this out.
Given that some of the facial muscles have not been able to work at all during these three years they are terrible ‘out of shape’. Over the three years, I have tried numerous remedies. In the beginning, I was seeing a speech pathologist. She gave me fun exercises. Blowing noise-makers, blowing bubbles, blowing up balloons. As the healing was very slow the insurance would only pay for so many visits. I’ll have to pull these out again and see how successful I can be. The other thing she prescribed that was lots of fun, was laughter. I posted on Facebook looking for things to make me laugh, I discovered many people find people hurting themselves funny – not me. I spent many hours watching “Whose Line is it Anyway”. The concept with the laughter was to try to get the muscles to respond spontaneously. She also had me doing lots of tongue twisters.
When this coverage expired, I move onto a physical therapist that specialized in Bell’s Palsy recovery. We did many of the same games the speech therapist had me doing. She added, massage, electric stimulus, and other manipulations to try to wake up the muscles. Again, recovery was slow and the insurance ran out.
Next up I tried acupuncture, this too lasted as long as the insurance. The acupuncture seemed to spur on the nerve regeneration. I had just completed a course of treatment when the pandemic hit. I’m leaning towards going back when it’s safe to do so.
In the meantime, I’m continuing at home with a treatment plan I designed. I can tell that the muscles are being worked. I am very aware of the shift in which muscles are working. Because the left eye still doesn’t spontaneously blink I either get my steps in on the elliptical or running around the house. While I’m getting my steps in, I exercise my face. I have a routine that creates ten laps:
Lap 1) Repeat E O. Long exaggerated sounds. Eyes closed on E open wide on O.
Lap 2) A E I O U (long sounds) a e I o u ( short sounds) Blink on each sound.
The next six laps are tongue twisters. Blinking to the cadence.
Lap 3) The big black bug bled blue-black blood. The baby black bug bled blue blood.
Lap 4) Frank fed fat fish fresh fish food.
Lap 5) Many mummies munch mush. Many monsters munch mush. Many mummies and many monsters must munch much mush.
Lap 6) Ninety-nine knitted knickknacks were nicked by ninety-nine knitted knickknack nickers.
Lap 7) Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many peppers were in the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Lap 8) How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
Lap 9) Squish face like smelling something horrific.
Lap 10) Blink blink blink.
Repeat until workout complete. I also made a playlist of songs I know the words to. For variety, I’ll sing along. It’s clearly helping as there have been numerous legacy moments over the last year of folks exclaiming “Your face!” in the best possible way.
