I had Bell's Palsy as a kid. Took nearly a year and lots of physio to clear up. Spent a weekend in the children's hospital for 'observation' - i.e. excuse to take a lot of photos and do tests for an article in a medical journal. I remember all these fellow inpatients - kids - always saying to me: "When you speak, your face goes all crooked." It drove me nuts: "That's why I'm in hospital stupid!"

In fact, for the next year, my parents did not permit me to smile for family photographs as I looked too weird. Difficult to do when your brothers would deliberately clown around to make you laugh. It used to take an hour for my dad to take a photograph, with my mum yelling over his shoulder - don't smile!- and occasionally tweaking my ear. So now we have bunch of photos with my brothers wearing stupid grins and me with one red ear and scowling.

So initially I was a freak and the family joke.
(I am laughing as I write this)

I didn't find out the name of the condition til I was much older and am grateful that it cleared up. Except that I still have a slightly crooked smile and a phobia for being photographed. But at least now when I smile crookedly, people just think I am being cheeky. Which is usually true. ;-)

Thanks for the links.