Topic Overview

Other conditions that can cause symptoms that are similar to those of Bell's palsy include:

• Stroke.
• Head injury.
• Ear infection or disease (acute or chronic otitis media, malignant otitis externa, or cholesteatoma).
• Brain tumor.
• Shingles (Ramsay Hunt syndrome).
• Infectious diseases such as chickenpox, mumps, mononucleosis, Lyme disease, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), or syphilis.
• Other diseases such as giant cell arteritis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, or sarcoidosis.