So I’ve had a fairly positive recovery. I recently went on holiday, approx 24hr travel there and while I was tired, after a nights sleep I went on to enjoy my holiday without any symptoms.
I came home there after two weeks away, and towards the end of the plane journey home started to feel really off balance like I had done a couple of months back, when I moved.
A good nights sleep helped a lot, but I’m still not back to baseline/where I was last week.
This is my only symptom.
Has anyone else experience a setback in recovery? I know the saying is two steps forward, one back, in the early stages of recovery. But this was like 2 steps back.
I understand fatigue etc but I haven’t had that in months and as I say, I felt totally fine while away. Even while having a cold.
Hey Matt - Welcome back from your holiday and I am glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the postcard you shared with us
Now, I just wonder if you might be giving Stroke a bad press here
You’ve just been holiday (East / West direction?). Ok on the way out, a good night’s rest and enjoyed the holiday with no symptoms. Typical for most holidaymakers is it not?
Away for 2 weeks and on the way back, towards the end of the plane journey, started to feel off balance. Got home, had a good night’s sleep which helped but not back to “baseline”.
This is your only symptom (which is nice to know).
Matt, if I may, I would like to suggest you are describing Jet lag.
I expect some other holidaymakers returning with you on that plane may well be feeling the same and they are likely not stroke survivors.
Is this not you?
Jet lag is even worse when flying from the USA to Europe, as time jumps forward, turning your sleep schedule upside down and potentially giving you less time to adjust before bed.
Just a thought, but wouldn’t it be nice if stroke was not to blame for this?
Thanks for your reply, I understand it sounds like I’m complaining about nothing here.
I think it’s a bit disappointing just to be so badly affected, if it is jet lag, in such a way (dizziness/balance). I’ve been jet lagged many times before (lucky enough to have travelled far and wide) and never had this, so it’s obvious if it is jet lag that it now affects my ‘stroked’ brain
I’m still not back to normal so I’m just hopeful it passes in another day or so
You’re not complaining about nothing - you are experiencing it and it may well be regression, but I just wondered if it is possibly Jet Lag. I personally have never experienced Jet Lag and so I cannot relate, but you have experienced it and so are able to make comparisons.
Just keep an eye on it and you’ll be able to make a judgement as to what it is.
Don’t forget (again, not something I personally have experience of) there is a phenomenon called “holiday after a holiday” - you need a holiday to recover from a holiday.
Welcome home. What you describe sounds a bit like fatigue or stroke decompensation. This usually happens when you have overdone it. You might not think a holiday is overdoing it but you have been on a long flight & the holiday itself will have taken a hit out of you. It is usually when you slow down a bit that the fatigue will hit.
Stroke decompensation is when a stroke survivor’s recovery seems to go backwards. It can occur when the brain is working hard or under stress, and the new connections it’s made aren’t as strong as the original ones.
I have copied in below a para about decompensation.
“Symptoms Slurred speech, Dragging a leg more than usual, and Other problems reappearing or getting worse”
Glad you had a good holiday & hopefully after a couple of days resting you’ll get back to your previous levels again.
I still find i go backwards 2 years on whenever im tired. My speech goes, i slur words, i drop things i curse and hubby and children say how much worse i could be.
The last time I went to hospital in November they said it was likely decompensation then, that was 2 months after the stroke. Here I am again 4 months after that, though this time not going to hospital as I know what it is
It does sound very much like decompensation, I’d would say definitely, but I’m not a doctor and only expert in my own stroke recovery. I’m 4yrs post stroke and I can still suffer with that from time to time, though not as frequently as in the first year
It just goes with the territory I’m afraid. You are only 6mths now, don’t be surprised if it happens again, and maybe again. We may also worry we’re having another TIA/stroke, But there are also reasons with the same symptoms such as blood pressure. How is your current BP? You’ve been on holiday, travelling, touring, long flights…and flight can affect bp too…but have you maybe missed the odd medications, easy enough to do on holiday, breaking away from normal routines etc.
And it can just be fatigue, brain fatigue! Remember the brain is not operating at full capacity! So it has been taking on information/function/activity in a whole new environment which was beyond its new daily norm. It going to get overloaded, fatigued and start throwing a wobbly. Give it a couple days/weeks and hopefully it should recover. I also found this dizziness/balance…decompensation, also occurred prior to an improvement in my stroke condition, sometimes small but better than nothing So here’s hoping that is the case for you also
Thanks for that! I had a good sleep last night and feel slightly better this morning, so at least I’m going the right way!
It was to be expected I suppose. I think cos I’d made such improvements then spent 2 weeks enjoying myself I had almost ‘forgot’, and got caught out.
I know 6 months is still fairly early on, but it feels like a lifetime
Chronic fatigue is a common side effect and we all have to work around bouts of it.
That plane journey home was perhaps too much .
I would have some easy days with plenty of rest and see if there is any improvement.
If not I would consult my GP
Thanks. It took a few days to see any improvement, then gradually I got a little better till today (7 days exactly) I would say I’m back to where I was. Not sure if it was fatigue related - I know that’s most likely and most commonly experienced, but I also had a viral bug or something going on too which probably didn’t help matters
So here’s hoping that is the case for you also 