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Case of the week 43 ( March 2012 )
Spontaneous Recovery of third nerve palsy


Before After

Videos of the patient before and after recovery




Oculomotor nerve paralysis, whether complete or incomplete, may have several outcomes. First, complete recovery may occur, sometimes in as little as a week or two. This suggests recovery from neurapraxia, without axonal loss. With presumed nerve infarcts associated with diabetes, hypertension, or ophthalmoplegic migraine, recovery does not begin for a month or more but is usually complete within 3 months . This suggests a lesion of axons, with preservation of nerve connective tissue. With aneurysmal compression or trauma, it can take up to 2 or 3 years to recover completely, suggesting more severe anatomic disruption of the nerve. If ptosis following trauma is going to recover completely, it usually does so within 6 months but occasionally takes as long as 2 years

In some cases of oculomotor nerve palsy, the paralysis persists completely unchanged. These nerves have usually been transected by trauma or chronic compression or have been infiltrated by tumor. Sometimes recovery is only partial. This occurs especially after damage to the fascicular portion of the nerve. Partial recovery may be characterized by oculomotor nerve synkinesis, so-called aberrant regeneration. Usually this synkinesis becomes apparent within 9 weeks after injury, but it has taken 3 to 6 months

This 58 years old diabetic lady has complete third nerve palsy  2 month ago , most probably of vascular origin , no history of trauma ,  bilateral normal fundi .  She was fully recovered ,spontaneously , within 2 months.

الموقع المصري للحول وامراض الجهاز الحركي للعين

The Egyptian Site of Strabismus & Oculomotor Disorders