What are you thoughts on tia vs stroke? It doesn’t seem so clear cut to me.
Most sources say symptoms fully resolve within 24hrs and leave no lasting visible damage. How come many people, including those here and case studies on the stroke.org website, have fatigue and weakness etc lingering far beyond this?
Hi @matt_d13
IMHO as a simple ignorant poor #StrokeThriver who has reads a fair amount of stuff and seems to have a independent take on things rather than simply repeating what other people have told him…
They’re two terms used informally by the lay (wo)man and the medical professionals alike in an imprecise way.
A TIA is a TRANSIENT ischaemic attack. The existence of the earth is a transient episode that’s been running 4.5 billion years so far and has another postulated 4.5 to go.
In theory a TIA damages without killing brain tissue (so there is a recovery of capability - But there may be long-term ongoing consequential impacts such as fatigue caused by an alteration in brain chemistry).
The stroke deprives of oxygen long enough that it dies - is that 1 neuron? 10^6 neurons or 19^8?
Currently we are not capable of replacing or regenerating that dead tissue So that’s the state of affairs till the rest of you dies.
I’ve never heard of a stroke that qas categorised by how many neurones were killed! (Even by approximation in %term)
I suspect it is beyond the current medical state of the art
Therefore TIA/ stroke is a continuum; at one end there might be clarity that somebody has suffered with a TIA and the other end that might be clarity somebody has tissue death (stroke) (but to what degree). There is an awful lot of grey between, also an awful lot of ignorance and laziness AND a large amount of who cares I’m suffering and I’m gonna fight to improve (or give up 
)
3¢
Love that Earth analogy haha.
And do you think some people are ‘fobbed off’ as a TIA even if they’ve had a stroke, or even possibly vice versa? Doctors are people at the end of the day and like all people, you will have some with differing opinions (in this case on tia vs stroke?!)
All this is new to me and it’s quite hard to comprehend how many with ‘tias’ have such significant lingering issues.
Yes Drs are people
People are fobbed off, errors are made as well as lies.
Thats a difficult one but a TIA is meant to be transient & mostly resolves quickly. Having had a stroke & a TIA in my experience, with the exception of fatigue, the TIA affects did resolve quickly i.e. the weakness in my arm & leg only lasted 30 mins or so. The fatigue…well that’s ongoing but I already had stroke fatigue so that may be part of the issue too.