I’m a 72-yr-old woman in the US. I was determined when I had my stroke that it wasn’t IF I would walk, it was WHEN. I’m highly driven and I push myself as much as I can. I walked unaided 2 months out and I do 2-3 miles a day. I’ve been in PT 3 different times and now I’m trying to do the exercises I learned at PT from home, which is hard to be consistent.
My 1st year was good and I felt like I was at 95% recovered. My 2nd year I noticed I had feelings like my equilibrium was more off than before. I had feelings of heaviness and feeling like Gumby at times in the 1st year but the 2nd year, it became pretty constant.
I guess I should nap more. I take vitamins, B12 and Tizanidine when needed for crampy, stiff leg. I just think this “drunken” walk feeling should have gone away by now.
I’m grateful I can do as good as I am but the frustration sets in every now and then. I know you understand what I mean.
Welcome to the community, I’m sorry to hear of your partners stroke. It sounds like Richard is doing really well so there’s every reason to hope for more progress!
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Just popping along to welcome you to the community, I’m sorry to hear about your stroke. It’s OK to be angry at times, emotions can be all over the place after a stroke.
It sounds like you’re doing an awful lot to aid your recovery. It’s always hard to motivate yourself and be consistent when you’re doing things at home. Could you get your husband involved or a friend to help you be more consistent?
If you need anything whilst you’re using the Online Community, please don’t hesitate to tag me using the @ symbol and my username.
I did have a rollator walking aid for a while and yes it allows you to walk further but I did wonder if it meant that I wasn’t making progress on walking unaided which is one of the reasons why I stopped using it. If it works for you though that’s great
Hello @viwiz - It seems to me you are doing really well
Walking unaided 2/3 miles a day and feeling 95% recovered - I’d be tickled pink with that
Clearly, if despite this you get days when you don’t feel like any progress is happening you set yourself a very high standard and that is great.
If I may, I would like to suggest you review your progress (95% of former self seems excellent to me) and then see what else you can achieve and then see if you still feel you are not progressing.
If you have reached 95% then there isn’t much more to achieve. So whatever you achieve may seem like no progress but it will still be progress but maybe harder to quantify.
It seems to me you are doing all the right things and perhaps you are being too hard on yourself. The one thing I would definitely recommend you do is to take plenty of rest. You are doing all the right things, but I would make sure you get plenty of good rest (catnaps if they help) and drink plenty of water to stay nicely hydrated.
@viwiz hi & welcome to the community. Good to hear you have made some good progress. If you are experiencing worsening of some symptoms after being ok I wonder if you should get it checked out. It may be that something else is going on that can be sorted.
Although overdoing it often makes me feel like you describe so it could be that you need to rest a bit more.
Some of you are making marvellous progress with walking.
My husband had a stroke Nov 24 and is still mostly in a wheelchair. It is very upsetting for us both as he seems to be going backwards.
When he came out of hospital in Feb he had 12 weeks of physio and speech therapy at home and was just getting on slowly with using a quadstick to walk the length of our lounge, then the therapy all stopped. We were put on a waiting list for community therapy but that hasn’t started yet so we have had about 7 weeks with nothing at all only what we can manage ourselves. He says his affected leg hurts, is very heavy and he cannot walk anymore. I have made an appointment for him to see GP tomorrow.
He hates being in the wheelchair all day and does exercises on the bed and I massage his legs, make sure they get elevated and so on.
Thanks ManjiB. The previous team had already requested his case as urgent as he was making good progress. We have someone from the team coming out on Wed but she said that is just to assess him before drawing up a plan.
I did enquire about private physio but that was £100 an hour plus petrol and she only works certain days.
@Trisha2 it is such a shame the physio stopped & you are now having to wait for the next lot to start. I am sure it must be very frustrating for you both.
Was your husband still managing to do his walking with the quad stick after the physio stopped? I only ask as i was quite merrily doing my exercises when my leg suddenly went heavy and I was no longer able to lift it. I felt like I had a lead weight attached to it. If you can try & do some leg lifting exercises. My hubby lifts my leg for me whilst I am lying on the bed so I don’t lose the range of movement in it. He’ll need that for when his next physio starts.
I read that 10% achieve 100% so I am pressing on to be one of them. I know it is probably unlikely and overwhelming odds but if after pressing I get to 98%, I’ll be happy. Actually if I can get my head to settle down and not make me feel wonky, I’ll give myself a satisfactory report.
Thanks for the welcome everyone and I wish you all good health!
Hi @viwiz and welcome to the forum. As you can see it is a busy community here; with lots of people more than willing to share their own experiences either as a stroke survivor or carer. And seeing as a few more new members have also joined in this thread, I’ll just say welcome to you all at once, @Puthnabit, @Gazfish67 and @viwiz
@Trisha2 - I agree with Ann.
If at all possible you should try to continue the home physio. Leg lifts, stretches etc. I appreciate it might not be easy - we find it difficult because Mum needs 2 carer support, but anything you can do will help keep your husband loose.
One other thing we do and which might be something for you to look at is use REVITIVE Medic to help the blood circulation and relax the leg muscles.
We also tried a leg walker but had to stop when another condition intervened.
@viwiz - I am sure you can achieve your goal. You’ve absolutely got the right attitude and willpower. As you well know, “Where there’s a Will, there’s a Hay” and you’ve got the will so there has to be the Hay
You may already have seen this but I will refer you to it again.
I work at exercising every day. I know repetition is the key to enhance neuroplasticity. Yesterday I recalled different improvements I’ve made from day 1 and it picked my spirits up. Some improvements are small but they’re there. I’m trying to focus on all the positives and relax mentally.
