ABC Melbourne presenter Ishkandar Razak has taken unexpected leave after experiencing a medical episode during a live broadcast.
Concern grew among viewers during a weather segment last week, when the newsreader appeared to have limited movement on one side of his face while on air.
Razak said he realised something was wrong last Friday mid-broadcast, noticing he felt as though he was speaking out of one side of his mouth.
He later shared that doctors had diagnosed him with Bell’s palsy, a condition that can cause sudden, temporary weakness or paralysis in the muscles on one side of the face.
‘It’s not a stroke, but as you can see, my face isn’t really reacting as it normally would,’ Razak said in a video posted to Instagram.
‘There’s some paralysation of this side of the face at the moment.’
He thanked concerned viewers who reached out, along with emergency department staff at The Alfred Hospital, who assured him it was nothing serious.
‘What it is, is Bell’s palsy, inflammation of the ear through, or an ear nerve that’s connected up and it means this is slower to react,’ he explained.
ABC Melbourne newsreader Ishkandar Razak has taken leave after he suffered a medical emergency while live on air last week
The TV presenter was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a condition which causes sudden temporary weakness or paralysis of muscles on the side of the face
‘I have been able to force myself to make it a bit better when I’ve had to work.
‘But keen people have noticed that this eye, more than anything, is really taking its time to shut.
‘So I am going to take a few days off, and hopefully this will sort itself out with medication and treatment in a few weeks tops.
‘Thank you again to everyone who’s asked, and if you see me with an eye patch on the streets, you know why.’
Razak appeared on ABC Radio Melbourne Afternoons on Wednesday to detail his terrifying on-air ordeal and initial fears that he had suffered a stroke.
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He admitted feeling unwell throughout the week before getting a bad night’s sleep on Thursday.
‘I was aware something was different and so the first real inclination that I thought something is probably askew was about 3.45pm, when I was on air with Charlie Pickering and that’s when I felt like I was talking out of the side of my mouth and felt a bit different,’ he told presenter Brigitte Duclos.
‘At the same time, I was thinking, the worst thing is that something’s really wrong here and it could be a stroke.
Iskhandar Razak hopes to be back on air within a few weeks
‘But I’m chatting away and no one’s noticing a thing. Everyone’s listening. No one’s made any comment that my face looks different. I’m completely coherent.
‘But when I got home that night, my wife, who is a GP, looked at me straight away and said, ”half of your face has got a droop going on”.
‘I couldn’t make a bubble with my face because I’d lost that muscle connection.’
Razak spent the weekend undergoing tests at The Alfred.
‘They told me that most people make a full recovery within three to six months,’ he said.
Razak opened up about on his health battle to explain his on-air absence.
‘I wasn’t planning on making a huge announcement or anything, but people were reaching out,’ he said.
‘I was writing four or five personal messages to people and I thought on Sunday, maybe I should explain myself, especially if I’m going to be away for a few weeks.’
About one in 60 Australians will experience Bell’s palsy at one point in their lifetime.
Symptoms include mild weakness or paralysis on one side of the face, facial drooping difficulty with facial expressions, drooling, jaw or pain, increased sensitivity to sound on the affected side. headaches and loss of taste.