My neurologist thinks the stroke was related to migraine even though I wasn't in pain until just a stab in my head when the stroke symptoms started. After extensive work-up in hospital, the only other possible risk factor they found was a Perforated Foramen Ovale (PFO) (small hole) in my heart.
Even after all this and the fact that I need to be in the hospital when a migraine has progressed to far because of my increased risk of another stroke, I have still heard nurses talking about "drug seekers" while I was admitted.
I am much less likely to go back to the hospital because of this.
I am also losing friends and relationships over the migraines, even though they know I had a stroke. No one takes it seriously and they all get sick and tired of my being sick and tired.
I now live in KS but used to live on East Coast and saw Dr. Stephen Silberstein. I am willing to go back there for help but they do not return my calls. Does anyone know where I should go for help?
Sorry this is rambling, but I am worn out from days of migraines!
Additionally, this website has been a Godsend for me as I struggle and feel so isolated.
Thank you so much.
I find I keep coming back to this article as it had always been engrained in me to ignore my migraines. I know I need to do everything I can to avoid and abort a migraine. It has been very frustrating trying to work with the many doctors I have gone to. I get tired of their condescending attitudes only to find they don't really know migraine disease and can't help with my migraines anyway. They make me want to fall back to ignoring migraines again just so I don't have to work with them, but I know that wouldn't be good and I have to keep striving ahead. I owe it to my family as well as myself although it gets harder and harder to do.
Thank you for always pushing education, Teri. Without it and you, I don't know where we would be.
While frightening the crap out of my pre-teenage daughters who had to call an ambulance, I began talking in that weird language like the news reporter at the Grammy's. By the time the ambulance got there my blood pressure was 256/164 and I was speaking English again but I was very groggy.
I am great at tongue twisters and the inability to remember the words that followed, "Peter Piper picked......(no memory) and then "How much wood ....(nothing. no memory) was my first clue along with extremely blurry vision. At that point I was still speaking English. While I was instant messaging on Facebook I typed jibberish. I could see it was jibberish and kept erasing the line only to repeat it again and again. Then I looked to make sure my hands were at home base and couldn't remember where that was. My language center had already been blocked but oddly I felt fine.
I wondered if I was having a stroke and told my kids to call 911, I got all my meds for the ambulance folks and began getting those awful shooting/striking pains up my right arm. By then I was speaking that weird language that sounded very harsh. My brain was speaking English, but my mouth wasn't.
The hospital called it a "hypertensive episode" because they had no medical proof of a stroke. By the shooting pains up my arm, my guess is I had just come short of the actual stroke. I spent 8 days in the hospital with tests galore.
Two weeks prior to this episode, while sitting at my desk at work, I saw aura's (heat waves on a highway-squiggly lines) and flashes of light along with the feeling of being in an invisible tunnel with limited peripheral vision. I ran to the eye doctor who said I have what is called OPTHALMIC MIGRAINES) which basically means I have migraines without any pain. In other words, I have no forewarning that they are coming and without the weird vision changes I would never know I was having a migraine.
I was released from the hospital with the diagnosis of a hypertensive episode and had the Opthalmic Migraine later in the year. After about 6 different CT-scans and MRI's they all came back with findings consistent with migraines. My neurologist said if my type of migraine lasts too long, it can cause a stroke.
Since 2009 my life is now accompanied by 10 blood pressure/water pills daily mostly to keep my blood pressure low for prevention of a stoke when migraines comes. Since I have no forewarning, when I see flashes of light I'm already in a migraine. So I quickly take another dosage of my medicine to see me through the episode without incident of stroke.
Until I saw the reporter talking weird, it was the first time I felt there was any legitimacy to what I've been told by my neurologist!
Maxii,
I'm sorry you've been through so much, but really glad that what happened to Branson has made you feel less alone and more confident of your diagnosis. If you're interested, I just posted a bit about her in Serene Branson Had a Migraine, Not a Stroke.
Aphasia, which is what happend to Branson, is a common symptoms of Migraine. Her situation was certainly a dramatic demonstration.
We're here if we can ever help you with information and support.
Thanks for sharing,
Teri
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We really need to have legal advocacy and legislative recognitIon FOR THIS TO GET BETTER.
HUD still doesn't count any physically disAbilty orlong term medical conditons in the homeless population so SICNE WE DONT EXIST
NO PROGRASM AND SERVICES ARE DEVELOPED TO HELP.
EVEN MILD DEV DELAY FULL ASSISTANCE BETTER MEDICAL CARE ALL!
BUT STILL
MAJOR PAIN LEFT IN THE ROAD WITH NO REALISTIC PATH OUT.