Bristol Palin visits the SiriusXM studios on September 18, 2018 in New York City.
Originally appeared on E! Online
Bristol Palin is getting candid on a scary experience.
The daughter of 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin shared that she is suffering from paralysis on one side of her face, detailing how the condition began.
“I woke up nine days ago with a little weird sensation in my face,” Bristol, 34, said in a video posted on her Instagram Stories on Jan. 29. “My mouth was pulling this way and it just felt, like, a little off. So I went and looked in the mirror — I’m like, ‘Wow, this is looking a little weird.’”
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According to the "Teen Mom OG" star, the left side of her face went “numb” within hours of noticing the discomfort and she “couldn’t really blink” her left eye. She then went to see a doctor, who performed a CT scan and placed her on steroids, as well as other medications to determine what caused the ailment.
“Nothing came back in all the results,” she continued. “They think it’s just a case of Bell’s Palsy, maybe brought on by stress or lack of sleep. I’m not really sure.”
Health
Bell's Palsy is described as a condition causing sudden, short-term weakness in the muscles on one side of a person's face which creates a drooping appearance, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Bristol — who shares son Tripp, 16, with ex-boyfriend Levi Johnston, as well as daughters Sailor, 9, and Atlee, 7, with ex-husband Dakota Meyer — went on to share several videos documenting the day-to-day changes in her situation, contorting her face in each clip to show the extent of her facial stiffness.
“I know I look crazy right now but this has been such an improvement from what I was looking like,” she explained. “I’m finally starting to get some of the sensation back.”
And although she described the experience as “wild,” she added that she found a silver lining in the ordeal.
“The next time that I look in the mirror and I pick myself apart,” she said, “I’m gonna remember this and I’m gonna just be so thankful for a normal functioning face.”
