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My husband had a stroke caused by a very rare congenital brain disease we didn't know he had. In retrospect, and of course once we knew, he'd been having TIAs for years with various symptoms. After his stroke (4 weeks after a cerebrovascular bypass) he went into seizures and the local hospital botched his care -- dickering with anti-seizure meds instead of intubating/sedating him (which they should have known is standard of care). By the time I got him into the care of his neuro team he was too brain-damaged and never woke up.
Stroke symptoms are nothing to trifle with.
PSA: If you have, or anyone you know, has children, and your child has any kind of stroke symptoms, even if they pass (i.e. TIAs), see a neurologist immediately. And keep this in the back of your mind. The disease my husband had is called moyamoya. Most neurologists never see it, but it USUALLY manifests in childhood and is most commonly associated with pediatric strokes. Just something to ask about should you or someone you know be in this situation of having a child who is having strokes or TIAs.
My brother had a spinal stroke in the 90's. He was taking things out of the trunk of his car, his back popped and he fell to his knees. He has been in a wheelchair ever since. He is 69 now. He lives several hundred miles away and I've visited him several times since the stroke. he always seems to be in good spirits.
Yes, I've known multiple people who have had a stroke with mixed outcomes.
A friend of mine had one when she was 48 and didn't recognize the symptoms right away. She had felt some numbness on her left side and had a bad headache but laid back down because she just thought that she had slept in a way that had left her arm/leg numb. When she woke up, she had trouble seeing and her daughter called 911 because her face was drooping on the left side. She did recover her speech fully, can walk around/drive but lost a lot of function in her left hand and walks with a limp.
My dad had a series of strokes when he was 68 years old and my mom recognized the issue pretty quickly so he was rushed to the hospital almost immediately. He had some impaired memory for a while but gained it back. The only real difference is that his speech has a small bit of hesitation and he is annoyed that he has trouble sometimes with math. Before the stroke he could easily do complex math in his head and now he needs to double check everything with a calculator.
My maternal grandfather had the first stroke when he was in his early 60's and it didn't do a lot of damage; just gave him a bit of a limp and he favored his left hand after it. He hated the side effects of the high blood pressure medicine and still refused to take it despite my grandmother begging him to do so and had another more serious stroke. This one left him dependent upon her care and eventually as she got older and less able to care for him, dependent upon nursing home care.
One of my friends has a daughter who had a stroke when she was 15, a severe one which left the girl in a coma for a month. Her speech was not really affected and it did not seem to affect her cognition. She does use a cane now as a result of the damage done though.
You have to know your numbers for diabetes, cholesterol, and blood pressure. Keep your weight normal and don’t smoke. Prevention is the key.
reading through all the posts and this one struck me.
I had a minor stroke at age 25. At the time it happened I was bending down putting things in an overnight bag to go away for the weekend. When I tried to stand back up the room spun and down I went. I couldn't get up as my arms and legs would not work and felt like jelly.
I managed to crawl/drag myself to where the phone was --- up on a wall in the kitchen, which seems like an impossible distance to reach. I tried to yell for help and next to nothing came out. Nothing that anyone would hear.
I managed to pull myself up over the sink and use my weight to stay there. Took me 3 times to dial 0.
Fortunately, the operator didn't hang up on me when she heard my garbled speech. She hooked me up to the police dept. and they finally figured out what I was saying my address should be and sent an ambulance.
Took me 6 months to get back my speech and movement, even my handwriting. Considering what might have happened that was good. There was no therapy. I find it odd and still terrifying to this day that so little was done at the hospital and they actually sent me HOME. ,
As for diabetes, blood pressure, smoking and weight - none of those things had anything to do with this. I was 25, never smoked, and dancer, so I was physically fit. It DOES have to do with your family background, as I have been told by several Doctors now.
What I can tell you about having a stroke is that I felt like I was a prisoner in my body. I could think anything I wanted to, but trying to express it was impossible.
Think of yourself behind a one-sided glass wall screaming and nobody even knows you're there. You can hear what everyone is saying, see what they're doing, but you can't do anything about it.
I thought the key thing with a stroke, is to get to the hospital ASAP, to minimize or eliminate the chance of permanent damage. Of course, it would depend on the severity, as well.
I knew someone who had had a stroke at 60-ish, and could function fine, except he was constantly frustrated, that his memory was shot, or his short-term memory, anyway. He had to write everything down, so he wouldn't forget appointments, the addresses, his daily/weekly schedule, a lot of details. He was getting anger issues about it, and about other things. I only later found out, that he'd had a stroke before I met him, and that it had seemingly brought about a bit of a personality change.
One famous stroke case was published in detail in the book, "My Stroke Of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey", about a neurologist's stroke, it's effects, and her path to recovery.
My mother had a stroke when she was about 80. Was left with weakness in one arm, and something they called dropped foot - where the toes drop down when you lift your leg to take a step. We had to get her a prosthesis to put in her shoe to keep her foot up. She spent a month at a rehab place. She could walk but wasn't too steady so I got her a 4-wheeled walker to replace the ridiculous aluminum frame that Medicare provided. They also gave her a wheel-chair for convenience.
The thing with strokes is you don't know what parts of the body it will affect or if rehab will help you regain function.
This isn't quite accurate - you can be sure that one side or the other will be affected depending on which side of the brain the stroke occurred in - left brain, right body, and vice versa. Legs are more likely to recover than arms. Speech can return yet swallowing difficulties remain. Cognitive difficulties can be harder to predict, especially if speech is preserved yet memory issues are there, apparent to family members and close friends but not to non-family medical staff or caregivers. Seizures can also occur (medication usually can help control this).
My mother had a terrible left brain stroke just prior to her 89th birthday. She lived another eight months but never fully regained her abilities. Her speech returned but her receptive speech was a little skewed, though her voice was clear and words were pronounced correctly. She would sometimes substitute words, especially early on. This improved somewhat with time. She could no longer understand the calendar or any kind of clock, and would forget the day and month and time if she was told these things.
Her ability to read was mostly gone - she read the word "glasses" as "gypsies", as the two words bear a physical resemblance to each other. Figuring out some of her requests became a guessing game: "Pull down the tablecloth" meant "pull the curtains" . But she enjoyed having others read to her, so we did this, and also played classical music almost continually, as tests had showed this helped the brain restore itself.
Her swallowing ability plateaued - she could manage jello, pudding, mashed potatoes, apple sauce, etc., but liquids had to be thickened and harder, chewier foods were out. She never regained sensation or movement in her right leg and right arm. Prior to the stroke, she had been a vital person, living alone with minimal assistance in her two story plus a basement home. She did find a wonderful woman to do housecleaning and shopping, and that same person became her main caregiver (other than me) after the stroke.
My mother was in a fair rehab facility after two weeks of hospitalization. While there, she received physical, occupational and speech therapies, which continued in her home once she came home (with 24'7 assistance - I took family medical leave and moved in with her, but could not do it alone, so hired others to assist).
It was a hard, hard and grievous time, but I am thankful I was in a position to help as much as I did - just wish it had been more, or better yet, that the stroke had never happened.
On the other hand, I've known others who had strokes but who regained far more of their previous abilities. However, they were much younger than was my mother at the time of onset.
Nowadays, using TPA has saved many lives and much quality of life for stroke survivors, but it must be given within a short time after the onset of the stroke. Ministrokes can occur and pass - but they should be taken very, very seriously as they are often warnings of a major stroke to come.
I hope your friend is receiving good medical care and therapies now to help her regain some of what she has lost. Her age is in her favor.
I'm shocked; she's around 57; she's a caregiver to her dad (Alzheimers) and her mom, while in good health is 92. Her dad is around 84. She lives with them and takes them to appointments, etc.
Can someone recover from something like this?
I could never recover from living with my parents.
In his 50's, father had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) at an early age....lost memory - short term.....evaluated by the hospital. No other deficits, resolved. No problems since (thankfully)....he's now 82. He has been physically fit since he was in his 30's....previously smoked and stopped. Maybe high cholesterol in his 30's-40's. Ruptured plaque maybe from arteries? I'm no at the age that he was when it occurrred. i take an aspirin daily and chol meds and run a ton along w/ all kinds of other fitness stuff........
One of my sisters called me today and told me a friend of my other sister had a couple of mini-strokes back in December 2018 but didn't know what it was and just kept on with life.
Now, she's been given a "retirement" party and her employer is having her leave her job - she can't move her fingers or even write.
I'm shocked; she's around 57; she's a caregiver to her dad (Alzheimers) and her mom, while in good health is 92. Her dad is around 84. She lives with them and takes them to appointments, etc.
Can someone recover from something like this?
Note: I guess with the death of Luke Perry (age 54) this week from a stroke brings this to the forefront.
I've had two strokes. Both about 20 years ago. Luckily, no damage, and I had no issues as a result. I felt wobbly in the beginning, disoriented, and had trouble walking. A week or so after the first one, I woke up and had the second one. My Doctor said if it had happened much later, he would have been more concerned, but to have a second one so soon is somewhat expected.
When I had the first one, I was at work and bent down to help a customer, and when I stood up, I was dizzy, and just thought it was how you get dizzy sometimes in situations like that. But the dizziness didn't go away. The customer was an EMT, and he said "Sit down on the floor and call an ambulance " he knew what I was having.
Over the years, I have had little dizzy spells, nothing serious, but they always scare the Hell out of me. But I have had no physical damage so far, knock on wood.
Location: Forest Service Cabin-90% of the yr. Sis & I inherited it and I bought her out.
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yes she called in saying she feels funny and they told her she'd had a stroke.
She was shocked because how could they know this?
Her words were incoherent and sounded as a stroke victim, they couldn't understand her at all.
Odd. Not sure if this story is true or not, always wondered.
She told me this.
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