On Wednesday evening I felt a gradual numbing of my right arm and felt all my nerves were on edge and couldn’t get comfy. No other symptoms
Then during the night my right leg went numb
I went to GP as there is a history of stroke in my family. He ruled it out. Thought it was trapped nerves or viral infection as i didn’t have stroke symptoms aside from numbness.
I went to see an osteopath – who said I puzzled him. No pain and no obvious trapped nerves. That was Friday.
Saturday morning I was taken to a&e as my movement on right side very limited indeed.
They scanned and ran tests. Ruled out stroke and tia.
Yet my right side still numb. Speech ok. Memory ok. Eyesight ok. No face droop. BP bit high.
They did see a “long ago” trace or marker of a TIA but said that was not the issue now as might have been 5 years ago – un noticed. But the doc felt “something” may have triggred that part of my brain to now react this way.
They were all quite baffled.
Im concerned about my mobility and wondered if you’d every encountered such a case? i’ve never heard of a previous TIA causing issues years on.
@gareth73 Hi & welcome to the forum. It must be very difficult for you not knowing what on earth is happening. I hope you get some answers soon.
I’ve never heard of a TIA causing issues years later but i’m no expert.
There is a condition called Functional Neurological Disorder which can mimic stroke symptoms. I got diagnosed with it after my stroke & was told it had been triggered by my stroke. I’m not saying that’s what it could be but might be worth a look. There is a website called neurosymptoms.org that explains it well.
I hope they are doing more tests to find out what is causing your symptoms.
A TIA by definition is transient and as well as transient in symptoms it wouldn’t leave any markers to be found. A silent stroke for example from a clot might leave some markers but they would probably only be detectable via an MRI scan, most likely not the via CT scan - You don’t say how anything was detected so we can only speculate here.
It would be sensible for investigation to include whether you have a hole in the heart PFO, or an irregular heartbeat -AFib, high cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, … etc - the common causes.
Attribution of your funny turn to a specific cause maybe impossible though. In which case there’s nothing specific you can do about it but you could adopt any lifestyle changes that reduce risk You might consider along with those what pleasures your giving up and whether you’re sensitised to a class of risk and ignoring others that have equal or greater statistical likelihood.
Best wishes for a neurologically uneventful future
Well normal caveat of " not medically trained" etc but there’s a hell of a lot of anecdotal in these posts about the impossibility of picking up a TIA artefacts on a CT scan and indeed the poor resolution of CT scans for picking up any clot based damage. Unfortunately most neurological conditions seem to be over the horizon of what frontline medical staff can reliably make pronouncements on.
Fnd maybe the best you get as an explanation. Jon Stone’s simile for potential causes is a good , plausible, candidate explanation which might bear upon thoughts about prevention and management but not about manifestation
I can certainly understand why it would cause some anxiety and youd want to continue to pursue it
I’m new to this forum, having had a (small) stroke 10 weeks ago.
I thought I’d reply to your post as it was only when I had an MRI scan - 3 weeks after the event - that the stroke was identified.
I’d been to A&E twice and had CT scans & blood tests etc but they were clear so I was sent home both times.
I only mention this as, like you I suspect, I then had no idea what was wrong so spent 3 worrying weeks Googling everything I could think of.
Fortunately, on my third visit to A&E I was seen by a doctor who wasn’t happy to assume all was well and arranged the MRI scan.
Apologies if this isn’t very helpful or pertinent - but it was only through the perseverance of my wife, and then bumping into the right doctor, eventually, that enabled me to find out what had happened.
Anyway, best wishes and I hope things are resolved soon.
Steve
Hello Ann. I’m in hospital for tests and had MRI which confirms NOT a stroke but they think it could be FND - so your heads up helped me know a bit about it. Thanks. More things ahead…
Hi Gareth, glad you haven’t had a stroke but sorry to hear you might have FND instead. Hope they are able to help work through the symptoms with you & also refer you on as necessary - physios etc. You need to insist though as they will often fob you off. There are a couple of facebook griups - FND Hope & FND Action which you may find useful. There is also an app (neurosymptoms.org) that you may find useful.
Sending you my very best wishes. FND can be difficult to negotiate your way through. Happy to help further if i can.
Hello Gareth
Well, sorry to hear that you’ve had a minor stroke, but at least you know now and can plan your recovery / medication accordingly.
Easier said than done, but my conclusion is that the NHS needs more MRI scanners. That’s probably been said before.
Best wishes,
Steve
Hi, I had a diagnosed stroke 6 months ago and I too have had symptoms since on the same side. This included a very pronounced and frightening feeling while suffering a hypotensive episode in hospital due to blood pressure meds! The hospital consultant explained that as being due to the body being very sensitive to damage from stroke when in a very low blood pressure state. It all went away when my blood pressure was restored a few minutes later.
Since then I’ve been off to A&E with blue lights and everything after having what I thought was a TIA, and was super scary. Drooping eye brow, tingling arm. A stroke consultant has since said it was unlikely it was another stroke as it was all in the same place and could have been due to blood pressure spikes.
I am very lucky that my stroke cause has been diagnosed as a PFO which hopefully will get fixed soon
I am no expert, of course, and my GP has also said most definitely not to ignore symptoms and that they must be checked.
Hopefully this may help with your feelings about your inexplicable symptoms. I think we have so many post stroke feelings and worries and I am certainly pretty sensitive to what’s going on in my body - could that be another stroke? What’s wrong with me? I think this is pretty normal from what I have read here and gleaned from other stroke survivors.
Take care. This forum is certainly an encyclopaedia of knowledge!
