At the moment, handkerchiefs, but I am just about to start repairing a travel bag that has seen better days. This is my first foray into the world of sewing, so I am well green. However, for someone who feels they need to be endlessly pottering, it has become a welcomed indoor hobby for when I want to be useful but not too active or do not feel like venturing outside. Hope you are having a decent weekend.
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@LisaQB reading your story and it is exactly what I’m going through! Stroke at 53, just 3 weeks ago. PFO identified and I’ll need a PFO closure. Such a scary and traumatic experience. Hope you’re doing ok xx
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve gone through that experience but I can assure you that things get better from that point. However scary it is to know you have a PFO that requires surgery, I can assure you that the relief of knowing the root cause of the stroke risk has been dealt with is priceless. I found that PFO closure procedure itself wasn’t very invasive or anywhere near as bad as I’d imagined and I recovered very quickly (but don’t tell my hubby as I made the most of the recovery rest time and also insisted on lots of ice cream to aid my recovery!).
I found that having a PFO diagnosis - while scary at the time - answered a lot of questions about my life and health before stroke, including struggling at altitude, lack of energy and stamina, breathing difficulties, migraine with aura, hair and nail breakage etc.
Once again, I’m sorry to hear that you too have been through this, but you’re not alone and things will get better.
You can message anytime, and please let me know how you get on post PFO closure.
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@LisaQB Thank you so very much for your supportive and detailed response. I’ve been simply terrified and it’s a massive relief to find someone who has been through the same experience. I’ve suffered from altitude, breathing and all the other issues you describe too and it certainly helps to have the problem identified and know that there’s a solution. So scary that it’s taken a stroke for PFO to make its presence known though! It’s so reassuring to read your experience of PFO closure and I feel much calmer now, thank you so much. I’m still waiting for an appointment for the procedure, I’m an emergency outpatient but I guess it’s still going to take some time, which is stressful. I’ll keep you posted on how I get on! It’s so lovely to meet you and I send my best wishes to you and your family xxx
I NOTICED LAST WEEK AT HOME IN BED TRYING TALKING TO MY GODSON THAT LIFT UP MY HEAD WAS CONSTANTLY HURTING from a stroke.
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Thank you for sharing. I’m coming up to 1 year and headaches that move around my head from the back (banging) to the front (splitting) happen daily for me. I am finding that you have to read your body and mine happen when my brain has been processing too much. Its usually the day after but if I’m on the computer or chatting with a friend they can begin after as little as 20 minutes. I’m on Amitriptyline which I know is helping because I tried coming off them and it was unbearable. I’m encouraged that headaches are common and that they lessen over time.
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Thanks @Mahoney. People ask me what I do all day. They can’t believe that sometimes I just sit or lie down with my eyes closed - no distractions. But like you this is the only thing that helps me. I’ve found the joy of birds tweeting outside my window. How had I missed the joy of that for so long. Silver linings everywhere you look. Best wishes.
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My wife died of a haemorrhagic stroke 14 months ago. She was 69 and relatively healthy with none of the usual risk factors.
As a research scientist myself (retired) I wanted answers.
Part of that involved investigating health issues of my wife in the previous few years.
Going back through her diary. I wondered whether there were warning signs months before.
Eight months earlier, she had her first ever migraine, and had 3 more in the following months. I’ve had migraines since I was 14 so it was regarded as ‘one of those things’.
A couple of times she separately noted a stabbing pain behind one eye. A check by her optician could find no reason for it.
Two months before the stroke she had a severe episode of vertigo which, when checked out, was assigned to BPPV, an inner ear problem.
I have since found that her blood pressure was around the bottom of the hypertension range.
In July/August 2020 her diary records a series of 6 headaches – she never had headaches normally.
I have also found out that, way back in May 2019, her optician referred her to the local eye hospital. All I know about that is that her lens prescription was unchanged but she was advised to “optimise control of her blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar”.
Are these symptoms just isolated events or could they be connected and even related to her stroke?
Nothing will bring my wife back but, if such information can save even one person, this needs further investigation.
One thing I have discovered whilst researching this is the effect of magnesium in the body, particularly any link to migraines which I had about every 2-3 weeks.
I started taking magnesium about 10 months ago and my incidence of migraines dropped by 95%. I doubled the dose 6 weeks ago and (touch wood) have had no migraine or headache since.
Being a (retired) research chemist I’m amazed that I haven’t come across this in the 50+ years I’ve been suffering. Big pharma suppressing info?
Since many of the symptoms of migraine can mimic the start of a stroke, I’m wondering whether magnesium supplements could positively affect the nature of a stroke, maybe to even prevent it? It’s a cheap and safe supplement that can have a beneficial effect on many bodily functions.
If my wife had started magnesium supplements after the first migraine, would she still be here? I’ll never know but this info may help others especially if it prevents or reduces strokes.
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Hi @Quarterp
Welcome
I’m very sorry to hear of your loss 
I can’t imagine being without mine
Your research sources interesting and very valuable either as an untapped avenue or as a explorers and marked ‘closed’ on the basis of fact 
Magnesium deficiency is already associated with stroke according to Magnesium intake and all-cause mortality after stroke: a cohort study | Nutrition Journal | Full Text
And other sources some of which correlated to poor recovery
Have you seen Did ANYONE have classic FAST symptoms as well as this thread
If instead of FAST the message promulgated was good to spot warning signs we would be a smaller forum; there would be people who escaped an avoidable event
Caio
Simon
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@Quarterp just popping by to say hi & welcome to the community. Sorry to hear you lost your wife as a result of a stroke.
I’ve pondered the question about whether i had any warning signs before my stroke. I had a pain in my face that went up behind my eye which when i mentioed it to the stroke dr they seemed to think it was related. I had some whooshing in my ear too which stopped when i had my stroke (although did come back for a while afterwards). As you say you’ll never know if it would have made any difference but I do think there is possibly something in the warning signs.
Hope you are doing ok.
Best wishes
Ann
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Ann I had the wooshing noise in the weeks before my stroke and I’ve had it intermittently since.
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It drove me demented and i suspect it was connected as it was on side i had my carotid artery dissection. I get it occasionally now but thankfully (fingers crossed i’m not tempting fate) not often.
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Fingers crossed for both of us
( I had an ischaemic)
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Think I may have posted this a while back. If only ! A day or two before my stroke while out walking in dark saw white ribbons dancing before me,mentioned to my wife but as I was a healthy bomb proof individual thought nothing of it. Was surprised by a few seconds of slurred speech when checking a WhatsApp before sending it,p about same time , didn’t think at all about it. I Had had two wee Tia ‘s and hadn’t registered them .
All due to very HBP. Then wham a right side haemorrhage leaving me with peripheral vision loss from both eyes on left. But thinking back a year or two was aware of becoming a little bit clumsy and was prone to occasion tripping resulting in sprained wrist and ankle when 70ish.
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I wonder if all these things are signs but as we think we’re healthy we just ignore them. After all it is very difficult to go to a dr & say i had a fleeting moment of… they’d probably say we were tired or everyone does things like that.
Hindsight hey.
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I’m sorry for the loss of your wife - and It does help to try to understand the whys and wherefores of such a traumatic event. It’s 12 years since my husband died and I still have moments where I look at certain pivotal moments of his illness.
I think a lack of magnesium played a large part in my history of frequent aura migraines. Certainly they decreased dramatically, after my stroke, when I did begin to take it, though I do continue to have a mild aura now and then.
I’m disappointed that I can find no clinical research being done in the migraine/stroke connection…someone must be, somewhere! My aura migraine turned into a stroke within a couple of minutes, and as such is termed a migranous infarction. I have logged all the migraines that have since followed, and how they changed with taking magnesium. These infarctions are rare and you’d think a clinician somewhere might be interested, but…….as the consultant who diagnosed my stroke somewhat offhandedly said it was due to age and cholesterol (which was good, not even high 
) and paid no attention to the migraine connection, in my records migraine is not even mentioned. Ah well…… water under the bridge, etc. But it was interesting reading your comments, and I would think there are people out there who could benefit from magnesium supplements. There are different forms of it which can target particular needs, and the actual amount of elemental magnesium is often much smaller than the larger, eye catching total amount shown on a bottle. It can get a bit complicated! Thanks for posting your comments, and keeping the conversation about migraine and strokes out in the open.
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Hi @Poozle
Sorry to hear of your loss - I guess time has given you perspective?
There’s writings on the topic of stroke & migraine EG
And
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=migraine+and+stroke&oq=migraine+and#d=gs_qabs&t=1714375623832&u=%23p%3DUfamdOIDytAJ
had a wider treatment which brought in PFO, silent stroke etc
IF we were more of a purpose driven COMMUNITY then we could bring influence to beat on some of the funding the SA hand out
Caio
Simon
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Hi Simon, Thanks for your reply and the links…. Google scholar is great, isn’t it! I had seen some of these articles, and had hoped to find results for recent papers. Most seem to be 2017 and earlier……and all interesting, but if there’s no real money to be made in a research subject it can be pushed aside from lack of funding. We need big Pharma but they do play an important role in what gets looked at.
Stroke seems to be a condition that doesn’t push the button with people’s interest…… until you have one affecting you or a loved one. I really enjoy, and learn a lot, from listening to the podcast Movers and Shakers, a group of well known, articulate people who have Parkinson’s. If you don’t know it have a listen - a lot of interesting, new stuff happening with PD. And the podcast has caught the attention of the wider world, putting a spotlight on the disease which seems to be sparking action here and there. A similar podcast with some interesting people who live in the stroke world would be great to have.
Ah well…. On we all trundle. 
all the best. Virginia
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Cool
Let’s do it !!
We could be Wobbling Warriors.
I’ll have a listen to m&s
Yep GS is good
Research Gate too, Microsoft academia… Infact see
https://alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-academic/
I’ve Heard the theory more than once about the reason everybody gets statins to take is because big pharmer need it to fund all the other research
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Wobbling Warriors 
Love it!
Thanks for the Microsoft academic link.
Well, that sounds a possible explanation for statins explosion…global sales quoted at truly astronomic levels …. That would fund more than an ice cream or two. 
Add that to the fact that docs often feel pressured to prescribe so that the patient feels something is being done 2+2=?
But….dont get me started on statins
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