Matt Carney, a stage manager who lives in Bedford, was at work in 2017 when he experienced the first of a series of mysterious symptoms. “We’d just started a performance of Hairspray, and almost with the first beat of the overture an intense earache started – like no earache I’ve ever had before.” Painkillers had no effect and when he was driving home later, his face felt strange in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. Within two days, he says, “it was completely paralysed on the right side”.
Anyone who has seen the news recently might correctly guess that Carney’s condition was Ramsay Hunt syndrome – a complication from the chickenpox virus – thanks to Justin Bieber’s post on Instagram announcing that he has it. In a short video, Bieber demonstrated that he can only smile, nostril-twitch and blink on one side of his face. But before Bieber’s post, the syndrome was little known – it isn’t even mentioned on the NHS website. It is commonly misdiagnosed as Bell’s palsy, which also manifests as facial paralysis on one side, meaning that patients miss out on rapid treatment with antiviral drugs, which, if administered within the first 72 hours, could save them from chronic, life-changing symptoms.
