Nurse has been unable to smile for 34 YEARS
CATE Wallwork suffers from a rare, life-changing condition which means she has been unable to smile since she was 17.
Melkersson-Rosenthal syndrome affects only eight in every 10,000 people in the UK – and sufferers like Cate face a struggle to get the right diagnosis.
Cate, 51, a nurse from Rochdale, has spoken out about the symptoms which have blighted her life in an effort to raise awareness.
She was just three when her family noticed her face had dropped.
She was diagnosed with facial palsy and her face slowly recovered. But she went on to have painful cold sores and swellings throughout her childhood – symptoms which masked the true identity of her condition.
By the age of 17 both sides of Cate’s face were affected by facial paralysis, leaving her unable to smile.
But it wouldn’t be for another two years, after her GP asked her to meet with a friend who was a professor of virology, that the condition which had blighted her life was correctly identified.
“He took one look inside my mouth and immediately diagnosed Melkersson-Rosenthal syndrome as causing all my symptoms,” Cate said: “He prescribed acyclovir and immediately I started to have less flare-ups.
“From the age of 19 I have had no further specialist follow-up for this condition. I work as a theatre nurse and one of my colleagues is now trying to help me access specialist help for the facial palsy.”
Cate added: “You spend most of your life trying to explain why you are like you are. You hear people discussing what has happened to you, fantastical theories that aren’t true. I was in a club when I was 17 and an older man called me ‘Quasimodo.’”
The charity Facial Palsy UK believes more education is urgently needed about facial paralysis – and says many patients are being let down by delayed diagnosis and insufficient care.
Patients with facial palsy are often not taken seriously as the condition is mistakenly believed to be cosmetic, the charity says.
According to a Freedom of Information request made by them, only 12 per cent of clinical commissioning groups routinely fund surgery for facial palsy.
As part of Facial Palsy Awareness Week – from March 1 – Facial Palsy UK is calling for more awareness and better care for those affected
For more information visit www. facialpalsy.org.uk.