I woke up on the morning of Jan 16th with BP. When I first woke up, my left eye felt very dry so when I looked in the mirror, I noticed my left eye appeared smaller and my eyelid would not close and then I noticed that the left side of my face was not moving when I smiled. As you all probably experienced, I thought I was having a stroke. I made sure I could speak, that I could walk, move my arms, etc. I went to urgent care and the doctor diagnosed as BP after elimination of other neurological issues. They subscribed 5-day prednisone and famciclovir for 7 days. My doctor said it could be various things that cause BP - they are not really sure what causes it and it could be a variety of things: virus, stress, trauma to area, etc. She said they subscribe medication in the event it is the virus. I went home with the dread of going to work on Monday. I am using Genteal ointment in my eye and at night, I found that Bandaid typeeye patch (the pharmacist suggested this because her husband had it last year) worked better for me to keep my eye closed at night. I called my boss and let him know prior to going in what was going on. Once I got to work, I went to everyone I enteract with on a daily basis and told them up front what was going on which made it easier to deal with for me. I think it made people feel more comfortable to come to me to see how I was doing once I did this. I work on a computer all day so since your eyelid does not shut, my eye was very irritated. I used artifical tears and wore sunglasses which helped the glare of the screen. After one week, the entire left side of face felt brusied and I started experience "shooting pains" consistantly on the left side of my face, back of my head and inside my left ear and below my year. Advil did not help with the pain so I went back to the doctor. They subscribed a nerve pain medication (generic name is gabapentin). After two days, I began to get relief from the consistancy of the pain and the intensity.. I went back to the doctor for a checkup on Feb 1st and by that time, the pain was almost entirely gone. My doctor wanted me to continue on the pain medication until next checkup Feb 12. This past week I have regained some partial movement in the entire left side of my face. Today is February 8th and I am happy to report I probably have 75% movement after 3 weeks. This has been a very scary experience but this forum and other information I have found helped me to realize this seems to be a pretty common problem and I can't begin tell you how many people who I have told what was going on with me have known someone who has had BP as well. I hope my story helps to ease the worries of those just diagnosed.