According to Scottish experts at the Dundee University, Bell’s Palsy is now very much curable with a new kind of steroid treatment, if administered at an early stage.

Bell’s Palsy is a syndrome that causes muscles on one side of the face to become paralyzed by affecting the facial nerve, which is used by the body to close eyes and smile.

It was found by the involved researchers that treating this disorder by making use of prednisolone at an earlier point in the stage of treatment can cure some people in just three months besides improving the chance of complete recovery by 95 percent in just nine months.

From News-Medical.Net:

The new study says that the relatively cheap steroid prednisolone was the “best treatment” and offered “significantly” better recovery rates than the anti-viral agent acyclovir, which they say “has little benefit”.

Professor Frank Sullivan, the director of the Scottish School of Primary Care at the university, and his team examined about 500 sufferers and he says the new treatment offers a significant improvement in how Bell’s Palsy is dealt with and will make a real difference to patients.

Professor Sullivan says the study gives clear-cut evidence that early treatment with steroids offers by far the best results for complete recovery.

The study was led by Dundee University, with support from other Scottish universities at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow and GP services around the country.

The findings have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It is considered that Bell’s Palsy affects one out of every 60 people at one time of their lifetime and this newly discovered treatment option can open “new doors” of treatment options for treating this disorder.

It was also concluded during the study that relatively cheap steroid prednisolone was a far better option than the anti-viral agent acyclovir.