I can't smile normally

[mollyfin]

As my neuro symptoms continue to get worse (if you missed my last few threads: I have weakness on my left side - doctor confirmed and made me an appointment with a neurologist - muscle tremors in my arms and legs, migraine aura symptoms that never leave or lead to a migraine headache, among other things), I've noticed something new - I can't smile.

Well, I can, but not normally.  When I smile now, there are gaps on either side of my mouth where my lips would normally touch.  It also feels like I'm having cramps in my lips or something when I try to smile and sometimes a visible trembling in my chin.  I'm also having tingling and numbness in my tongue, but I think that's anxiety related because it only just started.

I can't explain it very well, so I took a photo and stuck it on a picture of how I normally look.  It's not as visible in the pic as it is in real life, but you can hopefully at least get an idea of what I'm trying to express.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/406081_4886314151149_1200526624_n.jpg

I don't even know what to make of this. 

[london23]

Ur lips and surrounding area looks drier now..maybe that could be why

[marc]

Looks like dry skin to me. I would try a moisturizer.

[gcalex]

When we start being hypervigilant, nothing feels normal.

[L.I.L.L.Y]

to me it looks like the pictures are taken from different angles? maybe your just seeing thing that arent there because you are so worried! i agree tho that you lips do look dry you should try sally hansen overnight lip recovery, its a really good over night lip balm x

[mollyfin]

No it's not the angles, I first noticed it in the mirror because my face felt weird. 

I could definitely do with some moisturizing, no question...don't think that's the problem though because my face just feels tight and rigid

[floridaguy65]

Hi M:) Here's part of one of your first posts here about a year ago.

 --- So glad to find this forum...my friends get so fed up with my health anxiety.  And while I am genuinely concerned about this being an aneurysm rather than muscle tension headaches, well, I've been down this road enough to remember the myriad times I was just as certain I had various cancers, brain aneurysms, MS, endocarditis, etc...and to remember my friends patiently putting up with my drama while saying over and over again, "for crying out loud, you're fine!" ----

What is different now?

I'm not being persnickity (I'm too young to even be using that word:). We have to try as best we can, when we are struggling, to come up with some clarity and cause in our current actions and habits and mindsets. We have anxiety disorder(s) / health anxiety...all in our own context. This is the only 'given' that you have really isn't it? As far as the major root cause of a lot of your struggles. It is what I try to base all most of my actions and habits and mindsets upon when I feel I might be sliding towards some amped up HA stuff....that I have panic disorder / health anxiety. Everything else that I have tried to base it upon in the past has never really offered any lasting peace or any viable answers, honestly:)

Peace and Feel Well:)

[LindaRK]

When we start being hypervigilent, nothing seems normal ...... love it!

[mollyfin]

Well, the main difference for me here is that my doctor has confirmed that I'm having left-sided weakness, so I know it's not all in my head this time.  Not ALL, anyway. 

I don't know.  I don't know why I feel so certain that this is a brain tumor that is going to kill me.  I don't know why I can't just tell myself hey, I haven't been right so far (even when I had a giant tumor it turned out to be totally harmless!), so why worry about it until you have to?  Heck, I kind of wish I were more like my dad...he had throat cancer symptoms for months before we harassed him into seeing a doctor.  Of course, he did die (3 years ago today actually)...but from the cancer treatments, not the actual cancer.  Go figure, right?  (I wish he was still around...he was good at keeping my health anxiety under control somehow.  I know that has to be my responsibility, but...it helped a lot to have an ally.  Really, what it was was knowing that whatever I'd have to go through he'd go through it with me.  Not that my mom and my girlfriend won't be, but...it's weird how the person who used to scare me shitless was also the only person who made me feel safe.)

My doctor, god love him, told me that if I'm still "strung out" (hilarious to hear a guy in his late 70s say that, btw!) over this on Monday, he'll call the neurologist and see if he can get my appointment moved up. 

I'm so freaking scared of the inevitable MRI.  Even if the neuro thinks nothing is wrong, he'll probably send me for one anyway just to be thorough (I've never had a neuro NOT do that!) and I'm scared to death of being in that tube while they find something wrong.  I've had those tests before, I know they're no big deal, but I'm scared of being told they'll have me out in 20 minutes, only to have two hours pass and know that something's wrong.  And then the waiting on edge for days after until they call to say the results are in...and having to worry some more until you can go in and get the news...I hate the whole process.  And I know that I could just avoid it all by not going.  But if I do that, I'll remain convinced I have a brain tumor without knowing either way.

[gcalex]

With all the fears you have had that were unfounded, don't you think the overwhelmingly likely truth is that this is just one more?  Do you really need another MRI?  Do you think it's really plausible that you would have cycled through multiple fears and all of a sudden you now have the real thing?  A lot of times doctors don't know what to do with patients who persist in reporting symptoms and just order tests.  I would ask this doctor, if I did not have a history of an anxiety disorder, would you really find this test medically necessary.

[mollyfin]

Well I haven't been sent for the MRI yet...I've never seen this neuro before so it's a bit of a blank slate there.

I do get what you're saying...I don't know why it's so hard for me to accept that just because I'm convinced something is true doesn't mean it is.  Of course, if I had that figured out, I wouldn't be health-anxious...

[gcalex]

you have not yet internalized and fully embraced concept number one of managing health anxiety -- the mind can and does cause all sorts of nasty symptoms in anxious people -- once you do that you will not fear symptoms and your symptoms likely will diminish

[mollyfin]

That makes sense.  Sometimes I'm able to do that, but less and less often lately, which is a problem. 

[sassparella]

If I do a big smile, I get those gaps too and have for years if that's what you're worried about and I have no neurological symptoms. I worried about it when I first noticed it many years ago but forgot about it and took it as normal for me.

[mollyfin]

I know it's normal for some people but it's definitely not for me...my girlfriend is a photographer so what my normal smile looks like is well-documented, LOL.  I think it's due to muscle tension...I had a terrible headache that was gone after I took a tylenol 3 and a nap but came crashing back as soon as I forced myself to smile.  And despite my brain tumor fears this definitely felt like a muscle tension headache...the kind that starts in your neck and seems to kind of envelope your entire head.