Diet taboos for facial paralysis

First, do not touch spicy, spicy, hot, ice or other highly irritating foods during the acute phase 2 weeks before the onset of the disease. Second, try to avoid foods that are too hard and require vigorous chewing. Third, patients with underlying diseases must simultaneously respond to the dietary restrictions of the underlying disease. In addition, there is no absolute "fasting list", and the "completely banned foods and meat and eggs" uploaded online are all generalizations.

Last week, I met a 22-year-old college student in the rehabilitation clinic. After staying up late to watch football, he blew the air conditioner all night. When he woke up in the morning, his mouth was tilted to one side and he was leaking water when he drank. He was diagnosed with ordinary peripheral facial neuritis. I specifically told him not to eat anything too exciting in the past two weeks. As a result, the young man went to eat butter hot pot with his friends and drank two large glasses of iced Coke. When he came for a follow-up visit the next day, half of his face was swollen to the point where his eyes were narrowed. The nerve edema, which was originally expected to disappear in two weeks, took 20 days to get better.

Speaking of this, some people must ask, should we avoid the "fat things" that the older generation often talks about? There is indeed no unified clinical conclusion on this at present, and the views of different schools vary quite a bit. Some schools of traditional Chinese medicine believe that the acute phase of facial paralysis is mostly caused by wind and cold entering the collaterals and qi and blood stasis. Foods that cause inflammation, such as beef, mutton, seafood, and mango, will aggravate the inflammatory reaction. It is recommended to avoid them completely. ； However, the view of modern evidence-based medicine is that as long as you are not allergic to these foods and do not suffer from Hunter syndrome-type facial paralysis caused by chickenpox-zoster virus infection, you can eat them normally. On the contrary, the high-quality protein and B vitamins in these foods are necessary raw materials for nerve repair. Avoiding them for nothing will slow down the recovery. I met a patient before. He heard from his neighbor that he should strictly avoid smoking. He drank white porridge with pickles for half a month. During the final review, his albumin was so low that he felt dizzy. His facial paralysis recovery was nearly a month slower than that of patients with the same symptoms. The gain outweighed the gain.

Oh, by the way, many people will ignore the taboo of "difficult to chew food", especially in the first two weeks of the disease. The muscles on the affected side are weak and they can't bite hard enough. If they chew hard on nuts, ribs, or chew gum, either the food residue will be stuck between the teeth on the affected side and cannot be taken out, or the facial muscles that are still in the edema stage will be over-mobilized, which will increase the probability of facial muscle linkage in the later stage. I have a male patient in his 30s who chewed half a bag of sugar cane a week after the onset of the disease. As a result, for more than half a month afterward, the corner of his mouth on the affected side twitched unconsciously when he spoke. It took him almost a month of rehabilitation training to adjust.

Another thing to note is that if you suffer from central facial paralysis caused by cerebral infarction or cerebral hemorrhage, the dietary taboos must first follow the underlying disease. Foods high in oil, salt, and sugar should be tabooed. Don’t just focus on facial paralysis and lose control of the original disease. I once had an aunt with a 10-year history of high blood pressure. After suffering from central facial paralysis, she heard folk prescriptions telling her to drink more ginger soup to induce sweating and ward off colds. After drinking it for three days in a row, her blood pressure soared to 170. She felt dizzy and couldn't stand and almost fell. It actually aggravated the ischemia problem in the brain. It was really bad.

To be honest, I have come into contact with between 100 and 80 patients with facial paralysis. There really are not as many taboos as everyone thinks. Many people do not dare to eat or touch anything as soon as they get sick. They eat plain porridge with vegetables every day, which cannot keep up with their nutrition. They do not have enough raw materials for nerve repair, so they heal slowly. If you are really not sure whether you can eat something, try it once. If your face feels swollen or tight after eating, don't eat it next time. If you don't feel uncomfortable, just eat normally. Don't put too much psychological pressure on yourself. Relax your mind and you will recover faster than anyone else.