AFTER a 12-year long health battle that left her in “horrific” pain and fearing for her face, Tulisa Contostavlos has finally discovered its root cause.
The former X-Factor judge, 36, battled agonising swelling in her face and felt like her “cheek was on fire”.
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Taking steroids to dull the pain and swelling and resorting to fillers to “balance out” her face, Tulisa admitted she would ask herself “What the hell is going on with my face?”
The singer – who’s rumoured to be in talks to appear in I’m A Celebrity – says she finally got to the root cause of her health battle last year, after a scan “three chronically infected cysts” in her cheek.
Tulisa says the chronic infection in her face could have triggered the host of health issues she’s been battling for years.
“For years they were testing me for sarcoidosis, immune disorders, and now it explains all the symptoms that I was getting.”
Read more on Bell’s Palsy
The TV star even believes the cysts may have caused Bell’s Palsy – a condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face.
“They could have been growing over the years and actually triggering Bell’s Palsy.”
Tulisa experienced her first attack after suffering a sudden burst of inflammation in her cheek at the age of 24.
“They could have been the burst of inflammation,” she said.
Tulisa opened up about her health battle on Olivia Attwood‘s podcast So Wrong It’s Right.
She was probed by Olivia about speculation over plastic surgery that’s surrounded her over the past few years.
“To be fair, I haven’t had any surgery up until – confession – recently,” the former X-Factor judge said enigmatically.
“All the time before there was no surgery, only fillers and other issues that I had.”
Tulisa first opened about being diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy in 2020, saying it was probably triggered by nerve damage from a serious horse riding accident.
The TV star told Olivia she had her first attack at the age of 24.
“I was sat at home and I had this huge burst of inflammation on my cheek, as if I had an abscess in there.”
Tulisa was given antibiotics and steroid injections to treat the swelling, which diminished – but then her “whole face just dropped”.
“My face remained like that for seven months. I didn’t go out, I just hid in the house,” she said.
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When asked about what could have caused this, Tulisa said: “For me it was the trauma of the inflammation but no one knows what caused this cheek to blow up.”
Left with “mild swelling” seven months onwards, Tulisa admitted to using fillers in attempt to “balance out” her face, causing her to be locked in a “vicious cycle”.
The N-Dubz star had no new attacks for the next couple years, but she once again started noticing “low level swelling in the same cheek”, which started to get worse.
She recalled: “I would have tingling sensations like little ants crawling in my face, my cheek was numb.
“I started seeing doctors all around the UK [telling them] ‘something’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with my face’.
“It was scary.”
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At the time, Tulisa chose to dissolve all the filler on the left side of her face, only injecting it in the right side in attempt to mirror and balance out the swelling.
“This went all the way up until this year.”
The swelling was “at its worst” when the singer reunited with N-Dubz for a sell-out tour last year.
“I constantly felt like my cheek was on fire. I’d have good days and bad days and on some days, I’d take steroids, which would bring it down.
“When I was doing that N-Dubz run it was at its worst, so you might see an interview, I look normal. And then you see another interview, it’s like, what the hell is going on with my face?”
What is Bells Palsy?
BELL’S palsy is a temporary weakness or lack of movement that usually affects one side of the face.
It can last months at a time, but it is usually easily treated with steroids.
As well as changes to one side of the face, other symptoms include:
- A drooping eyelid or corner of the mouth
- Drooling
- Dry mouth
- Loss of taste
- Dry or watering eyes
- Difficulty closing one eye
A 10-day course of steroids, eye drops and ointments, and surgical tape to help keep eyes closed can all be used to treat it.
Symptoms usually clear up within six months.
If you or your child has symptoms of Bell’s palsy, you should ask your GP for an urgent appointment or call NHS 111.
However, call 999 if somebody’s face droops on one side, they cannot left up both arms and keep them there, or they have difficulty speaking, as these could be signs of a stroke, which is a medical emergency.
Source: NHS
A specialist Tulisa was seeing noticed “dark shadows” in her face during scans.
Though other doctors has dismissed the marks as filler or benign cysts, he advised that she get them removed in case they were the root cause of her inflammation.
Tulisa saw a maxillofacial surgeon, who said: “What I’m going to do, if you’d allow me, is to go in for an explorative op and just see what I can find.”
“I was like ‘please do it. I’ll do anything. Please. I can’t take it any longer’,” Tulisa recalled.
‘So, he went in. I’ll forget, I woke up and he said we’ve got some good news.
“We found three chronically infected cysts in your face. I basically had these cysts that were sat all around my cheek, swelling up with infection.”
The cysts were cocooned in scar tissue and would get inflamed and swell up.
“One of them actually popped as he went in that’s how infected it was.”
The specialist wasn’t sure what had caused the cysts, but he told Tulisa “they weren’t filler”.
She believes the painful cysts had exacerbated the health concerns she’s battled over the years such, as sarcoidosis and immune disorders.
“And I’ve had all these health problems for years – sarcoidosis, immune disorders and this explains all the symptoms that I was getting and could have been causing Bell’s Palsy because in total there was, I think, six of them,” Tulisa told Olivia.
“They could have been growing over the years, actually triggering the Bell’s.”
She recalled how her face “instantly” looked less swollen after the op.
Tulisa still has two more cysts next to her nose and in her cheek, which she’ll also get removed in the next few months.
She hopes her face will go “back to normal” afterwards.
Tulisa shared that she no longer has filler anywhere in her face except her lips – saying the lingering swelling is giving her face a “plump-cheeked look”.