Evening all,

I thought I would post a little update as its been nearly 6 weeks since I last filled you all in on how I'm getting on. Last update I gave I had very little movement but was beginning to see a few promising twitches here and there. I'm very pleased to say that since then I have had a lot of noticeable recovery!

I can now do quite a big smile which, even though its not like my old smile, still looks quite normal. It's kind of lop-sided because my snarl muscle doesn't really move much so my mouth goes outwards rather than being lifted up. When I smile my bottom eyelid gets pushed up so the smile looks more natural than before as my eye isn't wide open. It also feels very tight around my neck when I smile, probably because the muscles haven't been used for such a long time. If I really screw up my face then I can just about close my eye other than a small gap on the side closest to my nose. Other than that my top eyelid flickers when I blink but I think its done that since the start. My eyebrow is where I've seen least recovery, all I can really do is a tiny tiny frown but its only noticeable if you look closely, I can't raise my eyebrow at all.

I'm going to see an ocuplastics doctor on August 20th to talk about the option of having a gold weight put in my eyelid to make it blink. I know its too early to get it done but the normal eye doctor suggested that I go speak to them so that I can find out more about it in case I need one further down the line. The problem is I'm going to Berlin to study for a year in October so am trying to speak to all the different doctors that I've been seeing (ENT, physio, opthamologist) before I go as I might not see them again for a while.

My onset was 19th March 2010 and I didn't really start recovering for 3 and half months. I'm thinking of following FitGirl's example and making a youtube video so other people can see my progress, I'll let you know if I do and post it up here. I definitely regret not taking any pictures of myself at the start so I could compare what I looked like then to what I look like now.

Anyway that's my update, hope you're all doing well and are also seeing some recovery!

Boyler, Congrats on all that progress! I feel that I'm recovering faster now then ever (well, in relation to the eye, my mouth is still slow moving!)

I have done a montage with pics (snips catured from my videos) of my ability (or lack thereof) to blink... and it has slowly improved week by week, even the weeks I thought it was worse but only this week am I finally ALMOST able to close my eye completely and I've had this condition for 15 weeks (almost 4 months!)
I never knew I'd have to wait SO LONG for something so important yet trivial to most people.

The videos have been a great help for me as well! I was kinda shocked at the lack of detailed case studies on-line in regards to this condition so I had to do something about that! I think it's important that someone with a lust for knowledge and research like me does video document their journey... especially since now that I've been sick longer then the "average" timeline of healing. (But really, IS there an average timeline of healing for this condition? Or is that the doctor's way of putting your mind at ease while in his office?)