How about hemifacial seizures?

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A hemifacial seizure is an abnormal twitching of the facial muscles, usually starting around the eyes and spreading to half of the face. Although the disease is not life-threatening, it has a great impact on the psychology and aesthetics of the patient.

1. What is a hemifacial seizure?

Hemifacial spasm is a condition in which the muscles in one half of the face twitch abnormally. Although this disease is not life-threatening, it greatly affects the psychology and aesthetics of the patient, thereby hindering social communication, affecting daily activities and work.
Normally, the muscles of the facial region are controlled by the facial nerve (also called nerve VII). There is one facial nerve that controls each side of the face. It starts deep within the brain and travels through many structures to reach the face. The facial nerve transmits signals from the brain to the facial muscles to perform muscle contraction or relaxation. If this nerve is compressed, it can affect the signals that control the muscles of the face, leading to hemifacial seizures.

2. Causes of hemifacial convulsions

Currently, the cause of hemifacial seizures is not exactly determined. Many experts believe that the main cause is due to blood vessels in the brain stem pressing on nerves. Other rare causes include infection and stroke. There are also many cases of unknown cause and diagnosed by doctors as idiopathic hemifacial seizures.

3. Symptoms of hemifacial seizures

At first, there are usually only mild convulsions around the eyes (the sphincter muscle), the left half of the face is more often than the right half of the face. These seizures usually come in waves. Gradually, the convulsions become more severe, continuous and spread to the muscles of the eyebrows, cheeks, and palate, and the corners of the eyes and the corners of the mouth can be pulled upwards. As a result, both sides of the patient's face become unbalanced.
Some patients even hear a clicking sound on the face when the seizure occurs. For some people, hemifacial seizures may become worse with fatigue and stress, and symptoms may improve when the patient is at rest.

4. What are the consequences of a hemifacial seizure?

Mild convulsions can make the patient feel uncomfortable, lose confidence, affect the patient's eating and speaking. The convulsion causes the patient's eye to tilt upward, affecting the patient's vision and making the eye more susceptible to infection. Severe convulsions can cause facial deformation, loss of aesthetics, and affect the patient's work and life.

5. Treatment of hemifacial seizures

Treatment of hemifacial myoclonus can be with medication or surgery.
Medication use For mild or infrequent hemifacial seizures, antiepileptic drugs such as carbamazepine and topiramate may be effective. These drugs work by stabilizing nerve impulses. Benzodiazepines such as diazepam and clonazepam, which are sedatives, also help relieve symptoms, but can cause drowsiness.
For more severe cases, botulinum toxin (botox) injections can be used. This is a toxin, but if used in the right dose and under control, it will bring about effective treatment for the disease. The drug has the ability to paralyze facial muscles and stop convulsions. This treatment has an effective rate of 85-95%. The effects of the drug will disappear after 3 - 6 months and users need to be monitored regularly because this method also has some unwanted side effects such as drooping eyelids, eye pain, mild facial paralysis.. But these side effects will go away after a short time.
Surgery Although surgery is invasive, it provides immediate and permanent results. Among them is a procedure called microchip decompression. During this procedure, the surgeon will surgically move the compressed artery away from the VII nerve and place a cushion on it to protect it from future re-compression. This surgery is very effective, especially suitable for young people and those in the early stages of the disease, but for elderly patients, many medical conditions should not apply this procedure. This procedure also causes some complications such as the risk of hearing loss from 1.5 to 8%, damage to the cerebellum.
In addition, to prevent hemifacial seizures, patients should maintain a healthy lifestyle, regularly practice sports and build a reasonable diet. Stress and anger can also trigger hemifacial seizures or make them worse. Therefore, patients should keep psychological comfort, practice more meditation, yoga.
Customers can refer to the Cardiovascular screening package at Vinmec International General Hospital. With a team of qualified doctors and modern medical equipment to support the process of examination and treatment. In particular, with this package, customers will receive a specialist cardiology examination along with quantitative tests, electrocardiogram measurement and echocardiography. From the clinical results, the doctor will make conclusions so that the patient can understand their own health and take measures to prevent stroke.
In April & May 2021, when there is a need for examination and treatment of Hemifacial Convulsions at Vinmec Central Park International General Hospital, customers will enjoy double incentives:
- Free specialist examination
- 50% reduction in costs for customers with post-examination treatment indications. The program is limited to the corresponding technique of each hospital and to customers who perform this treatment technique for the first time at Vinmec.

Please dial HOTLINE for more information or register for an appointment HERE. Download MyVinmec app to make appointments faster and to manage your bookings easily.