Hi everyone. Two weeks ago I had a strange spell after work. I had just walked the dog and was feeling fine, chatting on the phone, when suddenly I became confused and light headed, then experienced tingling in my lower body and hips and felt my legs would not support me. I ended up on the floor for about half a hour, unable to get my words out, my husband wanted to take me to emergency but I felt weirdly calm, if detached, and didn’t want to go. The feeling passed and I fell asleep not long after. The next day I felt terrible but worked from home, struggled to write emails and answer questions, words getting mixed up, felt unsteady on my feet. I went to the doctor who found that I was unbalanced on one side so she sent me to emergency.
I spent 15 hours there, had CT scans (clear), and then was sent home with diagnosis of TIA and clopidogrel and follow up appointment with TIA clinic. I was so shocked as I am healthy and don’t have high blood pressure, I’m 50 but I have a fairly young child and generally felt well. I do have a stressful job and in the morning of that day had become very stressed at my crazy boss, but we’d resolved it and I had calmed down. In the hospital they found that my left leg was weak, but nothing terrible.
Over the next few days my left leg was still very weak, e.g. I was walking in a weird way, almost like my leg wasn’t fully under my control, and couldn’t climb stairs properly, also just exhausted. I kept writing the wrong word in my emails, etc and everything just felt difficult. A week after the incident I had an MRI and the TIA clinic said there was nothing there. They tested my leg a lot and found it was weaker than my right leg. For this reason, they said it can’t have been a TIA, and I should go off blood thinners and can drive again. But they didn’t give me any possible explanation for what has happened.
I’m relieved it was not a small stroke and this should be good news. But overall, it was stressful to be told I had a TIA, and then told I didn’t, with no explanation, and I am a bit scared that actually it was a TIA. I do drink too much so have cut right back to almost nothing - didn’t drink for 10 days as just felt too blah. Also I’ve cut out ibuprofen, just in case, as I took too much of that. I am in Australia, but I saw on a UK stroke website that people sometimes do feel an ongoing loss of mobility afterwards and I can’t shake the feeling that it was something that happened to my brain, even though it left no sign.
Two weeks later, my left is almost back to normal but I still feel tired and not quite right…my bloods, e.g. iron, were normal though, A bit scared about it happening again e.g. when I am driving.
Just wondering if anyone else was diagnosed with TIA and did have ongoing limb weakness?
Or if anyone had similar and ended up being diagnosed with something else?
Thanks so much for listening!
