Best Hemifacial Spasm Treatment in India

As the name suggests, hemi (half) and facial (of the face), Hemifacial spasm is an involuntary movement of muscle of your face, it occurs on one side of your face. Hemifacial Spasm is also commonly known as tic convulsif. This is a neuromuscular disorder that affects men and women both but it predominantly affects middle aged and elderly women. It is more common among Asian population. This neuromuscular disorder severely impacts quality of life if not treated properly in its early stage. It usually starts with intermittent twitching of eyelid muscle that can gradually affect other parts of one side of your face and neck.

Hemifacial Spasm symptoms

You must visit The Esthetic Clinics if you see any of the following symptoms. This may help the doctor in diagnosing this neuromuscular disease at its early stage of growth, and in effectively treating and curing this disease.  Common symptoms of hemifacial spasm are:

• The most common symptom of this disease is frequent involuntary movement of facial muscle on one side of your face. It generally begins with mild twitching in your eyelid.
• You may gradually notice that when you are tired or anxious then the twitching becomes more evident.
• These eyelid spasms gradually worsen and may become permanent and can cause your eyes to tear up or completely close.
• These spasms gradually spread to other parts like eyebrow, chin, lips, jaw, cheek, upper neck etc on the same side of your face and body.
• It affects men and women both, but it affects mostly women over 40 years.
• You may have spasms even when you are asleep.
• You may feel hearing impairment or pain in your ear
• Tinnitus or ringing in one of your ears or on the side where you get your hemifacial spasms.

What are the causes of hemifacial spasm?

People affected by hemifacial spasm are curious to know the causes of hemifacial spasm. Many times, doctors are unable to find any obvious cause of your hemifacial spasms, and such type of hemifacial spasm is called idiopathic hemifacial spasm, i.e., hemifacial spasms due to unknown causes.

Hemifacial spasms generally happen because of the following causes:

• Irritation or damage of your facial nerves. Generally, it happens because of the pressure on the facial nerve either by the abnormality within the brain like tumor etc or blood vessel touching and constricting your facial nerve.
• Physical damage or injury to your face or head that may have damaged or constricted your facial nerves.
• Bell’s palsy causes people’s faces to be temporarily paralyzed, hence people having it may also face hemifacial spasms because of side effects of Bell’s palsy.

Hemifacial spasms diagnosis

You may visit our clinics nearby for hemifacial spasms treatment, if you have any of the symptoms of hemifacial spasm or you suspect you have hemifacial spasm, for proper diagnosis. You must brief the doctor about your medical history and the symptoms you have developed. After initial discussions, your doctor may diagnose hemifacial spasms in following ways:

Physical evaluation: The doctor would do physical examination and see your twitching etc. He would like to assess the severity and duration of your twitches. If the doctor is convinced that you have hemifacial spasm then he would recommend medical imaging testing.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): The doctor would do this test to identify the cause of your hemifacial spasm. In this test, radio waves and magnets are used to create images of the inside of your body. This test would be done to rule out or identify tumors, brain lesions, multiple sclerosis or any other structural abnormalities that may create similar symptoms.

This test may detect abnormal loop of artery that may be pressing against your facial nerve causing twitches and involuntary movements in your face.

Hemifacial spasms treatments 

After the diagnosis and confirmation of hemifacial spasm, the doctor may suggest treatment plan as per the status of your hemifacial spasm and your medical history. Generally, the doctor may recommend following treatment options depending upon your individual medical history, physical conditions and severity of hemifacial spasm:

Oral medications: This treatment option is usually preferred when your hemifacial spasm is mild and in its initial stage. Your doctor may suggest medicines that may relieve your spasms and gradually reduce and cure it. The doctor may recommend you plenty of rest to calm your facial nerves. You may also be suggested appropriate food diet to enhance Vitamin D, magnesium, etc and limit caffeine in your drink.

Injections: This is a common treatment option used by doctors for patients having mild to severe hemifacial spasm. The medicine is injected into patient’s body. The doctor, depending upon the treatment, would prescribe injections that could paralyze the facial muscle and stop your twitching. You may be advised to take injections or treatment after regular intervals so that the wear off effects of the injections is addressed.

Surgery: Surgery is more involved and invasive process but it provides more immediate relief and permanent cure. Generally, the surgeons would recommend microvascular decompression to treat hemifacial spasm. Under this procedure, our surgeon would identify and move away the artery which is constricting and irritating your facial nerves. This procedure is more effective for young people having early stage of hemifacial spasm.

In many cases of hemifacial spasm, the doctors would recommend a combination of abovementioned treatment options to effectively mitigate the spasms and cure the disease.

Hemifacial spasm treatment side effects

There are a few side effects of almost all types of hemifacial spasm treatment and some of these side effects are manageable with proper medical care. Your doctor and surgeon would brief you about various side effects of various treatment options and how to manage them in due course of your treatment. Common side effects of various hemifacial spasm treatments are:

• Oral medications side effects: Generally, oral medications for hemifacial spasm may create temporary mild to moderate side effects. People taking oral medications for hemifacial spasm treatment develop side effects like nausea, slight skin rashes, drowsiness and mild balance problems.
• Hemifacial spasm injections side effects: People prescribed injections for hemifacial spasm get side effects for first few days after getting injections. The common side effects of hemifacial spasm injection are drooping of eyelid, irritation in eyes, temporary facial weakness. These side effects are temporary and usually do not have long term consequences.
• Hemifacial surgery side effects: Surgery is the most invasive and effective hemifacial spasm treatment and it has a few common side effects which are evident in many patients. Patients that have undergone surgery do experience facial weakness and decreased hearing.

Preventions and precautions for hemifacial spasm

Hemifacial spasms are mostly caused by constricting and irritating facial nerves by other arteries and abnormal growth of tumor etc. Therefore, there is still no known way to prevent hemifacial spasm from happening. But, it has been seen that high level of anxiety, stress and fatigue in patients can aggravate their hemifacial spasm conditions.

People having hemifacial spasm may take certain precautions to prevent it from worsening. They can significantly reduce stress, anxiety and fatigue to lessen the symptoms. They may change their life styles to lessen the symptoms of hemifacial spasm and support the medical treatment to alleviate and cure hemifacial spasm. They can also add food items high on Vitamin D, magnesium, muscle-relaxing antioxidants etc to their regular diets to improve their hemifacial spasm condition. 

Hemifacial spasms treatment costs

There are varied treatment options available for people having varied stages and severity of hemifacial spasms. You may visit one of our clinics for initial consultation and the doctor would suggest treatment options after confirming the stage of your hemifacial spasm, if you have. The doctors would apprise you about hemifacial spasm treatment costs after determining the personalized treatment most appropriate to you. The price of hemifacial spasm treatment would be very competitive for suggested treatment with high quality of patient care.

Why to choose The Esthetic Clinics for hemifacial spasm treatment?

You may choose The Esthetic Clinics for your hemifacial treatment because of our expertise in providing various types of facial treatment, neuromuscular disorder treatments.  The Esthetic Clinics would be a clinic where you can get world class high quality complete treatment for hemifacial spasm and other neuromuscular disorders. Here, you will get right from initial consultation, high quality medical diagnosis, various types of treatment including surgery, hemifacial spasm healing care, post surgery or treatment consultancy and care.

We have teams of best doctors, surgeons, plastic surgeon, cosmetic surgeon who are equipped and experienced to diagnose your underlying medical conditions and provide you best suited treatment. Our doctors and medical staffs are led by Dr Debraj Shome who is recently awarded best plastic surgeon in India. He is a well known celebrity surgeon who has provided plastic surgery to many celebrities in India and overseas. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (FAACS); only a very few cosmetic surgeons from Asia have succeeded in achieving the FAACS.

We have a range of clinics across multiple cities, you may visit any of these clinics for high quality full treatment and medical care for various types of neuromuscular disorder including hemifacial spasm.