Stroke Survivors - who don't know the cause of their Stroke

Yes I saw that, was just confirming that it could have absolutely already have happened when it didn’t show up on the CT scan. I remember being treated quite poorly by overworked AnE staff because the CT scan was clear…but I KNEW and feel sure you did too.

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Hi Mark

I had the AZ vaccine in January 2021 , soon after I suffered from constant headaches for about 2 months and it was diagnosed as ‘ice pick headaches.

Then in September 2021 I suffered a cerebellar stroke. I was 46 years old and had no indication that this would happen. I didn’t smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs, have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. I was also fairly fit and not overweight, so I did not get any immediate answers from the medical team that treated me in hospital.

A few months after being discharged I had an outpatient bubble echo appointment which identified a large PFO (hole in the heart). This was at last a potential answer. I was referred to a cardiologist who agreed that the PFO should be closed subject to a few outstanding blood tests.

I was referred to a haematologist for the blood tests which resulted in me testing positive for Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS). APS is a disorder of the immune system that causes an increased risk of blood clots. This was at last the probable cause of my stroke. My PFO closure procedure was delayed indefinitely due to the added risk of further blood clots and I am now being treated with warfarin for APS.

I am not sure if people without any answers know about APS, but I wanted to raise awareness on here so you can at least discuss with your consultant/GP.

As for there being a link to the AZ vaccine the jury is still out, but for me I chose to focus on my recovery :+1:t2:

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Thanks for sharing @Glen_G. I hadn’t heard of APS but might ask my consultant if I ever get an appointment to see him

Sounds like you’ve been on a bit of a journey of discovery but it seems like you have a likely answer now which is good to hear.

I hope you continue to find improvements as I do (although only small ones).

Onwards and upwards!
Mark.

Thats fascinating that you actually keep a dream diary. I’ve had dreams ever since I remember, some are scary and it is not unusual for my wife to shake me awake in the midst of a nightmare. A very few have been really pleasant and the majority just busy and slightly uncomfortable but the puzzle would be how you can actually write about your dreams. Mine are totally illogical and could not be written.
If there was a pill I could take to stop them I’d be onto it straight away.
Deigh

Shwmae Deigh,

When I was a wee lad, I would have some reoccurring nightmares but after maturing into my late teenage years, they stopped. Ever since, I can’t recall ever experiencing a true nightmare. When I would go to bed and, indeed, to this day when I go to bed, I don’t go to bed to sleep, but to dream. It feels like another life sometimes. I started keeping a dream diary about twenty odd years ago. I have never read back on the notebooks, but someday I would like to over a brandy or two. It’s rather personal, and not something I could ever imagine sharing, as the adage describes, dreams are less interesting for anyone else but the dreamer.

I don’t write down every dream. Some dreams have too many names and faces that wouldn’t make for an interesting entry. Some dreams are just banal in so much as they are interesting while they happening but not worth recording. I sometimes return to dreams, or have elements of past dreams turn up in newer dreams. Sometimes, I write down a fairly rudimentary description of the dream, sometimes I link the events together in rough notation, and the really elaborate dreams, I tend to write in more descriptive detail.

The way I view it, is that the brain takes a whole lot of current information and feelings, and creates a pastiche from prior experience. Brain analysis has shown that when painters paint, the same parts of the brain light up as when dreaming. So, if an artist is inspired by a dream, they are in fact using the same neurotransmitters to perform the act of interpreting it onto a canvass.

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Shwmae @Mahoney, they can be indeed one’s personal and intriguing cinema of the mind. At the expense of sounding a bit daft, I have terrific flying dreams but not high, just above the surface of the ground. When I was younger these dreams would require me holding a stick of rhubarb in order to elevate but, now, I can get off the ground merely by throwing myself forward.

I’m sorry to hear that your dream recall has paused but I do imagine it will come back and you will resume scratching your head and chuckling at the odd workings of the brain in sleep mode.

Fascinating how similar and yet how different are our dreams. Many years ago I learned how to fly, I actually learned over several dreams to do it, Initially it was just being able to elevate but led into moving my feet as though I was swimming and then I could move in different directions. Initially it was similiar to the Dumbo effect where I could cast myself into the air and as long as I kept confidence could have controlled flight. I seem to have lost this trick these days and flight does not come into my dreams. I have a feeling that I lost this trick when I learned how to fly an aircraft in the RAF!
Many situations appear regularly in my dreams. I often find myself in a town that I know quite well now. I know where the shops are and places that it is not comfortable to go in. I know the bus routes and where the food stores are. Another regular dream takes me driving through a hilly area and I’ve learned all the best fishing spots.
For some time I was bullied in my dreams regularly by the same person. During my waking hours I decided to carry a gun in my next dream and shoot the person. I was horrified at the idea that I would actually kill someone but consoled myself that it would only be a dream! Surprisingly enough the dream never recurred after this decision! It was almost as though I had solved the problem.
Deigh

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Aye @Deigh, same with my flying dream. I needed to keep my confidence up in order to have controlled flight, and I would cast myself off the ground as if swimming, sometimes bumping back onto the surface before rising again to take flight. I imagine that once achieving actually flight might make flying in dreams superfluous.

@Mahoney, aye they are fascinating. I never flew on a bed in my dreams but I did have dreams where my bed was on tank tracks and could move around the country with me tucked up in it.

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@Loshy, that to me sounds like a calm and pleasant dream, and may have been part of helping you get through the grieving process.

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I’m a medic and my husband had his stroke with no risk factors two days after his 3rd jab Pfizer. (Az first two times) So obviously I researched and queried the link.
You have to remember that almost everybody who had a stroke over say 55 that autumn had recently had a Covid jab and the rate of strokes was the same as the year before but even so…
Then I found that the rare AZ Covid related strokes all tended to happen at about 8-10 days post stroke and were associated with specific changes in platelets on the blood count which are routinely tested for and had not occurred.
My husband had no cardiac issues like AF, BP or cholesterol/diabetes wasn’t overweight or unfit. He did have migraine and a bubble test can show if there is a patent foramen ovale which links the two. The radiologist and consultant repeated the CT angiogram and the diagnosis was carotid dissection. A rare condition at any age, often linked to trauma but sometimes out of the blue. No realistic link to a vaccine that I can see.
So I will let him have his fourth because Covid would be worse. And just accept that life is unpredictable and not everything can be explained even though we desperately want to.

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@Stretton , thank you very much for your input. It is interesting to hear it from a medical professional with an affected partner. It makes total sense what you say, I just didn’t know that there were statistics showing no increase in total stroke cases since vaccines (also no increase in unexplained strokes I hope?).

Thanks again.
I still think it is interesting for us SS to know about those that are unexplained so they realise that it is quite a high proportion.

Stroke occurred in 1% of patients hospitalised with Covid and in some who were not admitted. It was common in those in ITU.
Hospital admissions for non-Covid mild strokes actually went down in the pandemic. It is assumed people were scared of coming to hospital and may have stayed at home.
The estimates of vaccine related strokes even in at risk ages was 0.0026%. So these would not have caused even a tiny blip in the total number of strokes in a year.
I did wonder if he was one of the 2 in a million but don’t think so any more.

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Sorry @Ingo66, I just realised I’d hijacked this thread with dream talk, oops :woozy_face:

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My stroke was 17 days after an Astra zeneca jab and that was given as a possible cause as they could not find an explanation for the clot which caused my stroke

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Im not sure what you are disagreeing with. Much of what you say is in agree with what I said. Individual anecdotes are not helpful.
What did hospitals not record and what is your evidence for this? I can quote you the papers with my figures but you can no doubt google them.

Fine by me, it’s interesting stuff! I think I’m remembering quite a bit of my dreams since stroke and they’re generally nice.

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@Loshy , I totally agree with what you say also! Hospitals were under extreme pressure after COVID started and from my own experience they were quick to dismiss any link. Your other point about AZ being quickly discontinued is relevant.

I am an analyst by profession so am very aware that statistics can be interpreted to suit any argument. @Stretton I would be very interested if you have a link to the research, also if your research was funded by anyone.

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Thats extraordinarily close to my experience. Keeping confidence was essential, have a moments waver and crash back to earth.
I tried to control my dreaming by planning ahead what to dream about , but that didnt work. The only control over them was that i knew that if I had mushrooms for tea then a busy dream would eventuate.
Unpleasant ones quite often repeated themselves which gave me a way of getting off lightly. In many of my dreams I knew I was dreaming which gave me an option of waking up.
Deigh

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I haven’t remembered any dreams since my stroke. It’s interesting that you point out that that doesn’t mean I’m not dreaming - just that I don’t remember any of them. At least I haven’t had any nightmares either

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