I had 2 small strokes (cerebellum) in March 2010 and had a PFO closure in Oct 2010. I lost my ability to keep my balance and to speak during the strokes, but the speech came back after 5 hours (took a week to normalize) and balance within 24 hours. I had a terrible headache for 2 days after the strokes but no pain during them and nothing showed on the CT scan the day of the strokes. I noticed problems almost right away with word retrieval issues (still have them), and dyslexic type errors keyboarding etc but the neurologist didn't seem concerned. Lately my husband and two adult daughters have told me they are concerned because I am repeating myself constantly. They tell me I forget I just asked a question or made a statement and repeat the same thing, often several times in a row. They told me this out of concern and not criticism. I'm worried now, as I wasn't aware of this before and it's making me self-conscious. I'm 52 and past menopause, and my family says this is a completely new behaviour that only started after the strokes. I did have some word retrieval issues before, but nowhere near as bad, and didn't repeat myself. The neurologist's here don't do cognitive testing, but I'm wondering if anyone has had similar after-effects like I'm describing, or had cognitive testing to find out what's going on. I didn't have any follow-up therapy after the strokes happened.
Thanks,
Karen
The following user gives a hug of support to kmarla: gnatt (01-08-2011)
In my experience, neurologists don't do that kind of testing. A neuro-psychologist does. They can test and figure out what areas of your brain are not working right and then give recommendations for treatment. You should find them listed in your phone book. Call and ask about testing for short term memory loss and other possible deficits post-stroke.
I had problems after stopping breathing post-surgery(hypoxic injury) and lost the ability to write long hand and also short term memory and concentration. I worked with a therapist to regain most of this. Still working on the writing long hand.
Thanks so much for the advice Jenny. I'll check out neuro-psychologists and see if I can get some follow-up testing. It's hard to realize that something's going on that might not be completely fixable, but I'll give it my best shot
Just wanted to pop in here and assure you that your issues are quite common following stroke. I have had the same effects with my speech following 4 strokes 7 years ago now.
While there has been huge improvements in the last few years, I still speak in gibberish much of the time.
Actually, my family has always treated it with laughter, because most of the word twisting is really funny. If a stranger were to be eavesdropping, they might now be able to understand my language, but my family understands every bit of it, no matter what word I am using, the idea still comes across.
After LOTS of practice here on the HealthBoards, I have overcome my typing errors pretty well, but my speech is just funny.
