Tulisa reveals heartbreaking health condition that forced her to have facial fillers

Tulisa has revealed that 12 years ago she suffered her first Bell's palsy attack which left her face lop-sided and so used facial fillers to correct the symmetry in her face

Tulisa has always appeared flawless in her appearance since she burst on to the showbiz scene as part of UK grime group N-Dubz.

But now, according to the singer and former X Factor judge, 36, she had been hiding a secret health condition that forced her to seek the help of facial fillers. The star explained on Olivia Attwood's podcast So Wrong Its Right that at 24, she suffered an attack of Bell's palsy, which is a form of facial paralysis. The noticeable paralysis lasted for seven months and in order to "balance" it out, she used fillers.

She said: "When I was about 20, I want to say 24, I had my first Bell's palsy attack. I was sat at home and I had this huge burst of inflammation on my cheek, as if I had an abscess in there or something. I went straight to a doctor, they gave me antibiotics, steroid injections so it went down and I was left with some mild swelling but then my whole face just dropped and my face remained like that for seven months.

She added: "I didn't go out, I just hid in the house. Then as I was coming to the end of the seven months, my face was still not right, I still had a mild swelling, so I would go and get fillers to try and balance it out. You can imagine the vicious cycle…" Two years had gone past and the singer regained the function of her facial muscle, until she started to feel similar symptoms to the last time she had an attack. This included "tingling sensations like little ants crawling in my face."

During the reunion of N-Dubz, Tulisa admitted the pressure of fulfilling commitments triggered her condition. She continued:" 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?"

Tulisa was becoming increasingly frustrated with her symptoms so she contacted a doctor who did an ultrasound. And after years of dealing with the condition, she finally found out that she had three infected cysts. She explained: "So I basically had these cysts that were sat all around my cheek, swelling up with infection - one of them actually popped as he went in that's how infected it was. "

She went on to say: "I’ve no idea what they were caused by - they weren't filler, they were just self-occurring, but I came out of the operation and instantly my face was less swollen. There's some still there so I still have the inflammation but it's way less. In the next two months he's going to go in to get those ones."

Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right is available wherever you get your podcast. Listen here

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