Alternative Medicine Heals Bell's Palsy Patient

By Candice Russell

Jeff Huntley, a vibrant, hard-working man in the prime of his life, didn't know what hit him on October 27^th of 2007. This forty-one year-old insurance salesman, husband, and father from Pembroke Pines, Florida was in peak physical condition, thanks to regular exercise workouts. Out of the blue, Huntley was a victim of Bell's Palsy, a temporary paralysis of the facial nerve resulting in an inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. The condition began with his tongue and mouth going numb. "It hit me in the fifth nerve in the back of my neck without rhyme or reason," says Huntley. "At the time I was working sixty to seventy hours a week, I'd been married five months and was working out seven days a week. Life was good."

But the sudden onset of a debilitating condition was reason to panic. "When my boss came into the office, the whole side of my face was numb," says Huntley. "He told me to go to the hospital and have an electro-cardiogram. I didn't know if I was having a stroke."

That hospital visit proved inconclusive and frustrating, as Huntley waited around until 5 a.m. before going home. "By this time, I couldn't talk," he says, "The whole right side of my face was dead."

At home his wife, an expert in massage therapy, worked her magic by keeping the circulation going in his face. Huntley saw his regular doctor, who gave him a steroid pack lasting nearly a week which Huntley says did nothing for him. The doctor advised him to go work out again the next day. But Huntley, who knows his body well, thought the doctor's advice about exercise didn't sound right so he abstained from any physical exertion. This turned out to be a wise decision.

Salvation for Huntley came in the form of Vu Minh Nguyen, an acupuncture physician with AcuMedUSA, an acupuncture and herbal medicine center in Pembroke Pines luckily around the corner from Huntley's home. His wife's research led him to Dr. Nguyen, who hails from Vinh Long, Vietnam. A Florida alternative medicine practitioner since 1987, he uses herbal remedies from China and Vietnam that have been applied to suffering people for more than 5,000 years. "Vu told me to stay away from the gym," says Huntley, whose own instincts proved correct. "If I had gone to exercise and bench pressed, I could have blown out a blood vessel in my eye and been in real trouble."

Thought to be caused by damage or trauma to the facial nerve, Bell's Palsy is a condition with no cure or standard course of treatment within traditional medicine. Yet the prognosis of a full recovery from it is high. Huntley wasn't keen on the idea of having up to fifty needles stuck in his face and body but he was determined to be pro-active in getting better. "I had just been given my own insurance agency to run in September," he says. "I didn't have time for this!"

Mentally, Huntley prepared himself for the battle ahead. He was going to be positive, as a close relative was when faced with his own health crisis. "My stepfather was diagnosed with colon and anal cancer in 1992 but he decided to think he just had a bad case of hemorrhoids," says Huntley. "After his surgery, my mother, who's a nurse from South Carolina, went a very natural route with his meals. Anything it took to help him heal, he was ready for it. I took the same philosophy and my whole family has been very supportive."

Visits to Dr. Nguyen dominated Huntley's schedule. "I went three to four days a week for a month," he says, explaining how his face was hooked to an electrical device to stimulate the needles. "Within three weeks, I started to get a tingling in the side of my face. Within forty-five days, I was ninety per cent better. I was back at work a day and a half after the incident happened, even though I couldn't drive and could only talk out of the side of my mouth. I was getting better. Though my energy level was low, I was going to heal."

It took time but Huntley began exercising again several months ago. How is he now? "I feel fantastic," says Huntley, who takes the natural vitamins prescribed by Dr. Nguyen. "I do get twitching in my lip and eye when my body is down. I took Thursday off. I listen to my body. I try to meditate. When I work out, it takes me away from my problems."

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