Health update

Well, first of all, it is good news. Thenfirst thing the doctor told me today was that there was definitely no bleed, new or old, in my brain. In fact, he was very unhappy with the way that the scans had been read...he said that the anomaly was clearly a blood vessel in my brain and that what had been reported was just so wrong. To add insult to Injury, the person doing the reporting completely contradicted themselves at the end of the report and didn't even notice. At the end of the consultation the doctor showed Number Guy and myself the actual scans and took a lot of time and trouble going through them to show us exactly why he thought that there was no indication of a stroke.

During the examination it became obvious that I do still have altered sensation in my right foot....this became very obvious as I was feeling rather blasé aboutnthe blunt pin that he was testing my foot with. he then used the same blunt pin on my fingers and I nearly shot off the examination table. He said thatbthis sort of numbness is very common with migraine, as is my word-finding issue. He thinks that I had a basilar or hemiplegic migraine. I have given a couple of URLs at the bottom of the post. To be honest they don't really explain theybtype of thing that can happen, possibly because it is pretty scary, I don't know. A quick Google will bring up lots of information should you wish to know more.

the doctor said that he has followed patients who have had very, very severe attacks of this sort. To the extent that they mimic a stroke even more than mine did. A lot of these patients never have another episode, so it really is a case of getting on with my life. He didn't categorize the attack as either the basilar or the hemiplegic as I think I was fortunate enough not to have enough symptoms to make the differential diagnosis but he is confident that it is 'that sort of thing'. He didn't want to do anything about my meds as he, quite rightly, felt that it had taken a lot of adjusting in the past to get to where I am now. I did, however, ask him if he could do anything about my sleep, which over the past few months has been very bad. Now that I know my brain isn't frying I felt that this was the single thing that would help the most. I was very hestitant about asking since in the UK there is still quite a stigma attatched to sleeping medication......woman+ sleeping tablets = neurotic. The doctor thought that it was a very reasonable request and apart from the huge relief at the diagnosis I am looking forward to what I hope will be the best night's sleep I have had in months.

apologies if theere are glaring typos in this post....I haven't worked outnhow to scroll up,through the text when I am typing on my iPad, so oncenit goes beyond the top limit I can't get back to it.





http://www.migraine.org.uk/index.php?sectionid=1254

http://www.migraine.org.uk/index.php?sectionid=210