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Bristol Palin Tries New Treatment for Long-Term Facial Paralysis Nightmare

“I haven’t been able to fully smile in over a year.”

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

PublishedApr 1, 2026, 2:35 PM EDT

UpdatedApr 1, 2026, 3:56 PM EDT

Updated Apr 1, 2026, 3:56 PM EDTPublished Apr 1, 2026, 2:35 PM EDT

After over a year of suffering from facial paralysis, Bristol Palin visited a plastic surgeon to try a treatment more commonly associated with freezing one’s face rather than helping it move.

The 35-year-old real estate agent, who is the daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, posted an update about her ongoing health issues on Instagram on March 31.

“I’m about to walk into a Botox appointment with a plastic surgeon in Austin, very excited about it,” Palin said, sitting in her car.

The update comes 435 days after Palin first woke up, unable to move the left side of her face.

Her doctors initially suspected she was suffering from Bell’s palsy, a temporary weakening of facial muscles that often eases within six months, but can last a lifetime. She has since experimented with treatments from steroids and acupuncture to no avail.

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The Teen Mom OG alum shared she started getting preventative Botox in her forehead at 18, but has taken a long pause during her paralysis.

“I’m excited to see if it helps with my eye, mostly, because this eye gets so tiny any time I talk or smile or the sun’s in my eye,” she said, pointing to her left eye, and added she also hoped it would help her smile be more symmetrical.

A second update came two hours post-appointment, with Palin sharing her immediate experience while wearing sunglasses.

“The appointment went really well,” she reported to viewers.

Palin took the sunglasses away momentarily to show her face. Her appearance was very similar to before, except for her left eye appearing slightly more closed.

Botox injections relax muscles, but the results typically begin to appear three to four days after the injections. It may take up to two weeks for patients to see the full effects, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Pointing to the corner of her left eye, her chin, the area by her right nostril, and around her right eye, Palin explained that the doctor at Buckingham Center for Facial Plastic Surgery had injected the neurotoxin in places she had never tried before.

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“I trust her fully, she seems very knowledgeable,” Palin said.

She previously shared that her doctor specializes in paralysis symptoms like hers.

Palin recently visited a specialist in Alaska, who also treats her condition.

She said the specialist told her that only two-thirds of patients with facial paralysis similar to hers fully recover.

“That’s kinda crazy to think about,” she said, explaining, “It’s like a nerve behind your ear inside a bone, and when it becomes inflamed, it’s like really hard to fix.”

“It’s also crazy to think about that this could just happen, and your face is like stuck,” Palin said, adding, “So I’m very thankful that my face has improved.”

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She said she understood that people might think she was vain for talking about her appearance in this manner, but said the paralysis affected her life.

“I haven’t been able to fully smile in over a year,” she said. “Hopefully, this Botox will help, and we will go from there.”

Earlier, Palin said she was not as troubled with her mouth as she was with her eye.

“I don’t really care about my crooked mouth, but my eye… so embarrassing to me," she said, adding, “I feel like I should wear an eyepatch or something. It looks crazy, and I just feel like I can’t even smile because it just closes.”

Palin planned to try Botox first, and if that did not help, she might consider surgery.

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

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