Angelina Jolie has been candid about her health struggles, including a double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes, which shifted her into early menopause. Now, she’s revealing a new condition she’s faced: Bell’s palsy.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Jolie said that last year she developed both hypertension (aka high blood pressure) and Bell’s palsy, which caused one side of her face to droop.
"I can't tell if it's menopause or if it's just been the year I've had," she said, adding that she's also noticed more gray hairs and dryer skin. "Sometimes women in families put themselves last until it manifests itself in their own health." In the past year, Jolie, 42, separated from Brad Pitt and says she and her family are "healing" in the wake of the couple's divorce.
Each facial nerve directs muscles on one side of the face, including those that control blinking and facial expressions, and when Bell’s palsy occurs, messages from the brain to the facial muscles are disrupted, causing facial weakness or paralysis. While facial weakness is the most obvious symptom of Bell's palsy, sufferers may also experience sensitivity to sound and changes in taste, Amit Sachdev, M.D., an assistant professor and director of the division of neuromuscular medicine at Michigan State University, tells SELF.
Bell’s palsy happens more often than you'd think—it affects about 40,000 Americans each year, per the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke—but it occurs equally in men and women. It’s also more likely to happen in someone before the age of 15 and after the age of 60. Bell’s palsy happens more often with people who have the flu, a cold, diabetes, or are pregnant. However, it can happen to anyone.
Doctors typically think that a viral infection like viral meningitis or herpes simplex (the virus that causes cold sores) causes Bell’s palsy, Santosh Kesari, M.D., Ph.D., a neuro-oncologist at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center, tells SELF. The thought is that the infections cause the facial nerve to swell, restricting blood and oxygen to the nerve cells, causing temporary paralysis. Bell’s palsy has also been linked with the flu, headaches, chronic middle ear infection, diabetes, tumors, Lyme disease, and trauma like a skull fracture. It's also been connected to hypertension, which Jolie has.
While stress isn't considered to be a primary cause of Bell's palsy, it's possible that it could play an indirect role. Being stressed out suppresses your immune system’s ability to fend off an infection and, in turn, can leave you more susceptible to infections that are linked to Bell’s palsy, Erika Woodson, M.D., an ear, nose, and throat specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, tells SELF. Stress can also reactivate a virus, like herpes simplex, which is thought to be linked to Bell's palsy. "But anything that stresses the body, physically or emotionally, can do this," Dr. Woodson says.
Jolie also mentioned menopause as a possible cause of her Bell's palsy, and David Putrino, Ph.D., assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, tells SELF that hormonal changes could play a role. A person's hormones may be responsible for triggering things like viral reactivation or make you more susceptible to bacterial infections, both of which can lead to Bell's palsy, he says. However, diabetes and pregnancy are considered to be more commonly linked to the condition, Ryan M. Collar, M.D., a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at UC Health in Cincinnati, tells SELF.
Bell's palsy symptoms can clear up in as little as two to three weeks, Leslie Kim, M.D., M.P.H., division director of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells SELF, but more severe cases can take several months to a year. A Bell's palsy patient's facial nerve has to recover, which can take a long time. "There is very little that can be done until the nerve starts to recover," Dr. Putrino says.
However, doctors may prescribe medications like corticosteroids, which can reduce swelling of the facial nerve, and antiviral drugs, although there isn’t a lot of evidence that shows antivirals are helpful, according to the Mayo Clinic. A person’s eye may have difficulty closing in severe cases, so special eye drops and even weights to help close the eye may be needed to prevent damage to the cornea, Dr. Kesari says. Jolie says that acupuncture helped her recover fully from Bell’s palsy, though there's no scientific evidence to suggest this can help.
If you or a loved one experience facial drooping, you should go the ER immediately. While it could be Bell’s palsy, facial drooping is also a sign of a stroke, which is more common than Bell’s palsy, Dr. Collar says. Facial drooping can also be caused by a tumor, ear-related disease, or trauma, Dr. Kim says, so you really can't self-diagnose with this symptom. At the hospital, doctors will run clinical tests to determine if you are, in fact, suffering from Bell’s palsy.
Again, Bell's palsy typically goes away on its own with time. But if you develop the condition, it’s best to get it checked out and get on medication in the early stages, which may help speed up your recovery, Dr. Kesari says.
Related:
- 7 Stroke Risk Factors All Women Need to Be Aware Of
- This Woman Had a Stroke After an Orgasm—Now She's Partially Paralyzed
- Angelina Jolie Opens Up About Her Divorce From Brad Pitt: "We Will Always Be a Family"
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