Pictures of Facial Palsy

Close up pictures of my eyes showing how they are affected by Facial Paralysis

The left eye (the one on the right of the picture) is paralysed. The inner rim of the lower eyelid is thinner than the other eye and you can see more white under the iris.  The staring eye is one of the annoying things about facial palsy!

Below you can see from the good eye that the eye closure is fairly relaxed, the eye on the right of the picture does not close and there is a lot of white showing.

In this picture you can see from the good eye that the good eye is being closed as firmly as possible. The left eye has closed a little further but there is still a lot of white showing, and I have tensed up quite a lot to try and close it but the facial paralysis prevents me from doing so.

The fact that the left eye does not close completely means that dust particles tend to fly in the paralysed eye easily. The blinking process cleans the eye so the paralysed eye is not being cleansed properly and it tends to dry out.  At night while asleep the eye is unprotected and can be damaged during sleep if it comes into contact with anything. Some doctors recommend taping the eye down at night but this is not very comfortable as it is not a natural feeling for a paralysed eye to be completely closed.

Once I have had the eyelid weight surgery where they are inserting a titanium weight in the lid of my left eye, then I will post more pictures here so people can see the difference it makes, hopefully I will be pleased with the results!  I know quite a few people who have this surgery later have the weight removed.