I was wondering if anyone had problems with their voice control or sudden loss of speech since their stroke?
I will be 2 years post haemorraghic stroke tomorrow (7th of July) and recently I have noticed I suddenly lose my voice when talking or it changes pitch. I have unfortunately been very ill with hospital acquired pneumonia in the past 4 months and it could be that my voice box has been damaged through extreme coughing, so I don’t know if this is the cause. Hence my question
My second query is that since my stroke I have noticed that I suddenly forget in mid sentence what I was saying. It’s not that I forget what I was talking about it’s more the words just won’t come out. I’ve ignored it for quite awhile now, but I feel its getting more obvious. Has anyone else experienced this sort of after effects from a stroke? My speech therapy stopped when I was discharged from hospital 2 months after my stroke. Thank you
I have fatigue all the time but still working full time. I find that mid week I now get so tired that my voice gets quieter and quieter to the point I am inaudible.
I also find that i keep forgetting words for things. I either go totally blank, I know what I want to say but even though the word is running round my head, I physically do not know how to speak it.
Another thing I find is that I forget the name of something or get so stuck on another word, I cannot say it. I was in the car a couple of days ago with my wife and we were talking happily and normally about gardening and it was relevant to the conversation and I wanted to say ‘green watering can’ i could see it in my minds eye but the only word I could think of was ‘saucepan’
I was telling myself in my head that it was wrong but I kept looping back to ‘saucepan’ so after about 30 seconds of silence I looked at my wife and said ‘sorry’.
Literally 2 minutes later ‘green watering can’ popped into my head and i finished the rest of my sentence.
I have nothing to advise on this sorry, but I have explained to my wife and asked her to give me space to work it through when i am having difficulties, and we generally get there in the end. What people in work think i dare not ask.
Thanks Simon, it seems we both have the same problem, which is something that I find helpful as I thought it was just me being forgetful, but as you say the words are in our heads, but can’t say them. It is strange that after my stroke it started, but as I mentioned it’s getting more frequent now and I’ve acknowledged to myself that it’s happening more often. If I find a reasonfor it, I will let you know. My husband is patient and waits for me to finish ,my sentence if I can, but it does get annoying for me! Thank you for sharing your story with me, it helps. I wish you well on your journey of recovery.
I wonder if it is a fatigue thing. Perhaps as time is moving on you are doing more & therefore perhaps a little more fatigued than you might realise. I don’t know for sure so just throwing a suggestion out there.
Fatigue is a possibility I guess, but it is a frustrating and difficult issue, especially when talking with friends. My family know I lose my words, but not everyone has the patience or sadly, the understanding of stroke related side effects which for stroke survivors only makes it more annoying. It’s worth a thought though. Thank you . Simon how long is it since your stroke if you don’t mind my asking? I do hope things will improve for you a little bit every day, the brain works in mysterious ways, but not always in our favour
I had the first one late last year. I realised something was up when I could not feel the dog pulling on the lead, or even rhe lead itself. He is a German Shepherd, so it was pretty obvious.
Earlier in the day prior to this I had numbness in my face and head which I can only describe as my head feeling like I had been to the dentist.
This was small and picked up in an MRI in January which I paid for privately due to the waiting time for the NHS MRI.
I then found I had leg drop and foot drop and my right arm would not move when I walked. Then the fatigue got bad and my eyes developed the ability to move independently and blink at different rates. This amused the gp no end .
The second one, I am pretty sure happened the Saturday before mother’s day. Our son had taken 5 hours to drive up to us and had taken us out for afternoon tea. I dribbled the one glass of wine and couldnt speak or eat, but didnt want to make a fuss.
This combined with earlier fatigue kicked things up a gear speech wise. I got that NHS MRI in May in the end and got the results in June. Two small strokes and a couple of dozen additional bleeds. Sorry if that is too much info.
Hi Simon, thank you for your reply and certainly not too much info. I am sorry to hear you’ve had 2 strokes, one is enough to cope with and come to terms with, two is too much!
I also have foot drop now in both feet. I did have it in my left foot, but when I had my stroke early on a Sunday morning, I couldn’t put my feet in front of each other to walk and had no coordination. My husband drove me to hospital as an ambulance was too long a wait. I am waiting for the results of a brain scan I had done on the 21st of May, (a bit long if theres a problem)!! because my vision plays me up either with blank spots in the middle of my eyes or they lock together like I’m boss eyed, all since my stroke!
It is so frustrating when there are so many different issues we need to deal with and they all seem to come together but nothing is done when we mention them to GP’s or consultants.
I hope the problems you are experiencing will be sorted out soon and you get some answers that you need. For me I have several autoimmune illnesses and it’s easier for Dr’s etc to tell me it’s my Scleroderma or my heart and lungs are worsening. Its frustrating when we believe it’s more stroke related .
Well, I am sorry I cannot help you with any concrete answers, but I really wish you well and hope everything comes right for you. Take care and best wishes for your future recovery. Keep smiling at least we’re breathing .
.
.