The Ultimate Poker Face: A Case Report of Facial Diplegia, a Guillain-Barré Variant

• Main Authors: Joshua Lowe, James Pfaff
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: eScholarship Publishing, University of California 2020-05-01
• Series: Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine
• Online Access: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1bt8r09p

Introduction: Facial diplegia, a rare variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), is a challenging diagnosis to make in the emergency department due to its resemblance to neurologic Lyme disease. Case report: We present a case of a 27-year-old previously healthy man who presented with bilateral facial paralysis. Discussion: Despite the variance in presentation, the recommended standard of practice for diagnostics (cerebrospinal fluid albumin-cytological dissociation) and disposition (admission for observation, intravenous immunoglobulin, and serial negative inspiratory force) of facial diplegia are the same as for other presentations of GBS. Conclusion: When presented with bilateral facial palsy emergency providers should consider autoimmune, infectious, idiopathic, metabolic, neoplastic, neurologic, and traumatic etiologies in addition to the much more common neurologic Lyme disease.