A 32-year-old woman got the shock of her life after she realised that her twitchy eye is not a sign of stress rather it was actually due to rare type of brain tumour. The Glasgow-based woman first experienced the bizarre symptoms which she thought was a painful ear infection while pregnant with her first child in March 2020.
After the birth of her child in September that year she found the pain subsided and she ignored it. However, when she became pregnant for a second time in 2023, the 32-year-old started to have headaches and suffer what she described as a ‘twitchy eye’, Daily Mail reported. She again ignored her symptoms assuming them to be a sign of tress and hormones.
In May 2023, a new symptoms emerged-numbness at the corner of her lips-which made her book an appointment with her doctor. According to the Daily Mail report, she was rushed into hospital for an MRI scan which revealed the devastating cause of her symptoms. According to the doctors, the cause a type of brain tumour called an acoustic neuroma, which grows in the nerve that connects the brain to the ear.
According to the doctors, the tumour had been slowly growing in her head for about five years, before rapidly expanding in size within the space of six months, triggering symptoms.
A rare brain tumour, acoustic neuromas, also called vestibular schwannomas, has only 1,200 cases diagnosed per year. Although these tumours are benign, they can still cause life-threatening problems as they grow in size. If they grow too much, they can also cause damage to other areas of the brain.
The woman had to wait six months before having an operation to remove the tumour as she couldn’t go under the knife until after she gave birth to her youngest son Rory in November 2023, Daily Mail reported.
Although the 10-hour-long operation was successful, the woman was left with facial palsy — nerve damage that causes the facial muscles to weaken or freeze — that has left her unable to smile or to cry out of her right eye. After her face was partially paralysed, she’s unable to smile.
Her facial deformity had drastically affected her confidence. She is now schedule go under the knife again to transfer a nerve from another part of her face and two from her legs to hopefully restore her smile. The operation, which will take place in March, may not be effective for at least 18-months. However medics say after this period there is an 80 per cent chance Ms Clark will regain the movement in her face, Daily Mail reported.