I had no warning signs, none. This happened to me out of the blue one morning. I felt absolutely fine the days/weeks/months prior to my stroke. One morning I just collapsed. I kinda knew at the time I was having a stroke. It actually went through my mind. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me(that’s a story for another day) but I think I knew. I hope this never happens to you, if it did I’m sorry. It sucks, I know. 🙂 It happened very fast for me but there are things to look for if you feel off. In school, they taught us to look for the 5D’s and 3 N’s. These stand for…..
- Diplopia (double vision)
- Dizziness
- Drop Attack (meaning you just fall down – you drop – it doesn’t mean dropping things)
- Dysarthria (trouble speaking)
- Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing)
- Nystagmus (an eye thing where your eyeballs move back and forth involuntarily)
- Nausea
- Numbness
I had a lot of these. Not all of them but most of them. In fact I had all but two. I don’t know if I had nystagmus and I never had numbness but I had everything else. Dysphagia was terrible. In the hospital, my swallowing was evaluated and it wasn’t up to par so for a couple weeks I wasn’t allowed to have water. I was only allowed to suck on a wet sponge. Oh my gosh this was awful! Good thing I can laugh about it now!
Here are the risk factors…..
- High blood pressure
- Atrial fibrillation
- High cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Atherosclerosis
- Circulation problems
- Tobacco use
- Alcohol use
- Physical inactivity
- Obesity
- Age
- Gender (males have more strokes)
- Race (African Americans have the most strokes)
- Family history
- Previous stroke or TIA (transient ischemic attack)
- Fibromuscular dysplasia
- PFO (I disagree with this one because of the current research, see my earlier post. However, it’s still listed as a risk factor on all kinds of medical websites so I put it here)
Numbers 1-10 are controllable. So I control them. I can’t do anything about the rest of them though. They are what they are and they’ll be with me forever.
Categories: Stroke stuff
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