“… I can say that we have noticed that her eyes have lost some of their general droopiness (both upper and lower lids) and this in turn appears to have given better shape to the bridge of her nose but it is hard to be sure on this one. Her cheeks have become more defined and there is more movement in them when she speaks. By far the greatest area that has shown improvement is her mouth. The lower lip support is so much better which really helps with her eating. She is much less messy now and although she only drooled occasionally this problem has almost totally been eliminated. The shape of her mouth is much improved in that it has lost some of the roundness and there are now creases at the corners of her mouth. She still does not have lip seal but they are closer together than before e.g. she can now blow a penny whistle by holding her lips together (one Handed) around the mouth piece whereas before I used to use both my hands to get a good enough lip seal (she couldn’t do it by herself at all). There is definitely more movement around the lower part of her mouth whish is more pronounced when she raises her arms but this is still to a certain extent involuntary.”

The child in question has regular speech therapy and her mother goes on to say her

“..speech therapist has commented that although her vowel sounds were never bad, they are clearer now because of the better mouth shape.

Her teacher has noticed that there is more movement around the mouth and that eating is less messy. She also feels that XXXX speech is improving.

Our family and friends can definitely see changes for the better. Comments have been made about the eyes and it has been said that she doesn’t look so much like she has a ‘syndrome’ now. Another comment was that although she still has facial paralysis her face looks more animated.”

Shortly after this letter due to the pressures of school life and a busy social life with activities out side school etc she took a break from treatment. 2 years later we were able to repeat emg testing and found that none of these changes had been lost and had been incorporated into daily movement patterns.