Hello all,
I hope you’re all having a good festive season. 
I’m coming up for my one year anniversary in February - the time has flown, yet been painfully slow at the same time.
My question is, should I be chasing up any reviews with a specialist?
I know I’m due some blood tests in March with my GP and I’ve already got those, marked in my calendar to chase up.
In February I will be in my fourth year post stroke.
I have found that over time the support drops away, so be sure to make good use of everything available right now. There are all sorts of possibilities relevant to your case. Try to explore them as fully as you can.
I think the follow up support varies depending on your stroke & where you live. If you were told you’d have some follow ups then chase them up. You could also try chasing an appointment with the stroke team.
Happy New Year.
Ann
It’s up to you, I saw my stroke consultant several times for the first year and even opted to have another MRI as my anxiety levels were through the roof. Now, I have an annual stroke review with a GP, these are just bloods, urine and observations (blood pressure, weight &c).
I’m 9 years post stroke in February and I’ve only ever had a yearly stroke review (blood test, weight taken and medication review) with my GP. I think it really depends on what your health authority offers.
Regards Sue
Hi Sue,
Thanks for the reply. Happy New Year! 
The mental health aspect has been most important for me, and I’ve been seeing a really good neuropsychologist since October.
We’ve spent months doing all kinds of cognitive tests to see what kind of therapy is going to be most helpful to me, and last week she showed me the report she will be sending to my GP and a copy to me. It makes for quite interesting reading!
We’ve decided that a particular type of CBT could be helpful, so I’ll be starting that next week.
We both suspect I might be on the autistic spectrum, but she can’t do that assessment, so she’d have to refer me through my GP, so then my choice is to wait nearly 2 years or pay £1800 for a private assessment. Right now, I don’t have a job, so I can’t justify paying that much for a piece of paper.
It took almost four years to establish on a professional level that I had developed BPD from stroke, even though I suspected all the while. If you can self diagnose, there is no difference, the woman who developed the entire DBT handbook self diagnosed her condition. The way forward is then getting the support, but if you stick to your own diagnosis then someone will eventually listen.
That’s so interesting!
I did some research in the early days of my stroke as I suspected it had lit the blue touch paper on some latent autistic traits. 