Aishwarya Sakhuja recounts battle with Ramsay hunt Syndrome like Justin Bieber

Monitoring Desk

MUMBAI: Indian TV actor Aishwarya Sakhuja recounted her suffering from Ramsay Hunt Syndrome – the disease diagnosed in Canadian singer Justin Bieber.

During a recent conversation with an India-based tabloid, the small-screen actor spoke about her battle with the illness eight years ago, while shooting for her serial ‘Main Naa Bhoolungi’.

Recounting the suffering, Sakhuja narrated, “We were shooting back-to-back as we had a wedding sequence coming up. I vividly remember I had a 2 pm shift the next day and the night prior, Rohit kept asking me why was I winking at him. I thought this was one of his silly jokes and did not react to it.”

“The next morning, when I went to brush my teeth, I had a tough time holding water in my mouth while rinsing. At that point, too, I thought it was exertion,” she added.

Sakhuja further revealed that she was urged by actor Pooja Sharma, who happened to be her flatmate back then, that something was ‘off’ and she should be visiting a doctor immediately. Her doctor later confirmed about the facial paralysis and asked to go for a brain MRI, which then diagnosed the Ramsay Hunt syndrome.

Speaking further about how she carried out shoots during the span, the actor said, “I couldn’t take a day off since we didn’t have a bank of episodes ready. So, I continued shooting. The cast and crew were very supportive, and they tried to shoot in a way that half of my face was not visible.”

“The steroids were extremely heavy and even heavier was the emotional turmoil because as an actor, my face is everything,” she concluded.

It is pertinent to mention that Canadian pop star Justin Bieber had announced to be suffering from facial paralysis earlier this month, after being diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome.

Bieber, 28, mentioned his condition in an Instagram video, “As you can see this eye is not blinking. I can’t smile on this side of my face… So there’s full paralysis on this side of my face,” he said in the clip as the singer tried to smile and blink, but the right side of his face didn’t move.

While pointing at the right side of his face, the ‘Peaches’ singer added in a nearly three-minute video: “It is from this virus that attacks the nerve in my ear and my facial nerves and has caused my face to have paralysis.”