Aged 22 just had an event speculated to be a stroke ( blindness, vertigo, numb left hand)

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Hello, I'm writing here as I am waiting to see a neurologist in the next couple of weeks. I'm sorry if I added this in the wrong column. There's so much to say about what I'm dealing with, that I didn't know what category to fit it into. 

To start with, I've had a very bad history of mental health issues ( I know, weird thing to start with), and also a very bad history of how it was treated. I had a lot of anxiety in my first year at university, due to some personal and other problems, and I had to take a year leave. In my second year, my situation fluctuated between going  well to going terribly bad. I berely finished what I had due from year one. In year two, I had even worst problems and I barely pulled through. Now in my final year, I am yet still experiencing problems, but in my last year they've been more physical than mental. For anybody unwilling to read most of my struggles with mental health, I've fast forwarded to the speculations on stroke in the last two paragraphs.

My mental health degraded as the years passed. Initially, despite knowing me for being a fairly timid and emotional character, I began having bouts of anxiety. They got worse with some financial problems, both my parents getting ill (thereby being unable to work for a year, hence more financial problems), having discovered something from the past within my family that was linked to a very traumatic event in my childhood. To not digress too much, I didn't grow up with my parents for many years, as they left to work abroad, and I was passed on from one family member to another. I always felt unwanted by my parents, "a burden" to everybody who had to take responsibility for me, and it didn't help that I also suffered being perpetually abused in my last childhood years.  My parents returned from abroad when I was 15 (they left when I was 7, and in this window we had short visits, about two a year). By this point I was planning to go to medical school; I was studying really hard, got top grades, and my teachers were very hopeful and encouraging that this was the right path for me. My parents, upon returning, were in high disagreement over this. They saw medical school as a time consuming, and -most importantly to them- very costly to take, and also the salaries upon graduation were not promising. They instead forced me to take mathematics and programming for my high school options, thinking this is the future, and i could get a very high paying job when I graduate. In this, I was mediocre, since I was never even passioned of such disciplines, let alone be anything good. I finished high school with Bs in ll my subjects, which affected my confidence a lot. To put it into perspective, in my school years I only had A*s in everything. I thought I was being robbed of my ambition, and not feeling I had any special qualities in myself I didn't know what to take for a degree. I chose a humanities degree, which exhausted me mentally. Here I was yet again mediocre, nothing special. Never had a passion in what I took, other than having it been a favourite past-time but I just wasn't too bad to be kicked out (yet) either. Ironically, I have even worst employment prospects in the degree I have ended up doing. I felt my life was pointless, and seeing people I tutored outside highschool in anatomy progress in medical school really took its toll on me. 

My first suicide attempt was last year, I was put on sertraline for some months (which absolutely wrecked me, I became so apathetic I almost starved myself to death). Then floxetine gave me hallucinations, and I had to be taken off it after an incident. I completely lost any idea of myself and I passed out in a lab room for 10 hours. I was only found when they were closing the lab, my partner thought I killed myself, since I did not answer my phone all that time. After sertraline increased my suicide tendencies and starved me of any will to live (as an organism, let alone as a human being- I didn't leave a specific corner of my bedroom for two weeks, in which I had very little water and cose to no food at all) and fluoxetine made me into a walking lunatic, I refused to be put on any antidepressant anymore. Counselling and CBT didn't help, I decided it was a battle I had to fight on my own, and I was lucky to have a loving partner to stand by me in the process. It didn't help that in my third year at university (second, in terms of degree) I had pneumonia that left me bed ridden for months. This summer unfortunately, I had another critical point, where my partner had to call an ambulance. I became completely apathetic, and I just wanted to die. I started my last year with the hope that I can finally live a normal life again and work on my future, when I got terribly sick, I couldn't see anyone for a long time, I was constantly in pain, and my energy was fully drained. Both my mental and physical energy was worn off. I decided, I was a walking waste and I wanted to end it that time. The ambulance doctors wanted to refer me to the crisis team, took me to a bigger hospital in a different city, suggesting it is best for me to stay there for at least a night. It was so crowded and so full, my partner and I were left waiting for hours- him, crying... me, too apathetic to care unfortunately. I had a very dull discussion with a nurse ( I don't even think she was from the crisis team), and we agreed that psychotherapy might be the best option to be followed, saying that she will begin the process for me. This happened at the end of July. I never got a call back, or anything even now. Knowing how all of this damaged my partner as well, and our relationship, we agreed to fight it together, yet again. I resigned from my stressful summer job, which probably also made things worse ( I was in a financial impasse), and decided to focus on my mental and physical wellbeing, so that in turn I can be a better person too.

A month after, my grandmother (who technically raised me like a mother in my childhood) suddenly began to feel very poorly. In that time I had to submit some outstanding work at university again. The doctor suspected stomach cancer, and said he wouldn't operate after what he saw in the endoscopy. My grandmother also suffered from depression, she was very sad...always crying. She had her life struggles as well, which I won't get into. It broke my heart whenever I called her, she would always cry . She didn't even know she was so sick. My mum didn't tell her she had cancer, she and my uncle hoped there was still a chance. My partner and were frantically trying to find time to fly abroad and see her. Plane tickets were so expensive, we settled for the 12th of September (after my assignment was also due). My last phonecall with her was in on the first of September. She said she was feeling very poorly, her legs were swollen, she could not eat anything. She said she was very weak, but she didn't want to die. Oh, God. I can hear her voice still. She was saying she was afraid to die. She died on the 2nd of September, a horrible, painful death. This time, I had become so bad, my mental health was the least of my concerns. I broke down physically. I cried out of everything, to the point that I would collapse. Anything that reminded me of her, made me fall down and cry, uncontrollably. Knowing she was dead, I began having a very strong smell of rot whenever I approached anything. I was so shattered, had hallucinations, and my heart was going crazy. One day all of a sudden -though I was feeling better-, my legs began to wobble uncontrollably, and my heart rate rose to 190 bpm, then it went horribly down. I began to have tremors, my vision was getting very hazy. At A&E I was dismissed with a panick attack. Back in the summer, out of nowhere, when I was just feeling a bit better,but I had terrible migraines almost every day. I thought it was just due to stress, anxiety, depression, etc.  and at one time when I was washing the dishes I lost my eyesight completely for about 20 seconds. Last Wednesday, I woke up and I was very dizzy. I came from my lectures and I went outside with my boyfriend for a bit. I was feeling more dizzy, and I lost my eyesight again, this time for almost a minute. I stood still, I couldn't feel any part of my body, I thought I had fallen but didn't even know. I couldn't see, and I had no conception of balance. I told my parnter we had to go home. After a couple of minutes, on my way back, it happened again. Lost my eyesight, there was a lot of pressure in my head, and ringing in my ears. All I saw was white. When my eyesight came back again, I don't remember much aside from feeling obnoxiously dizzy and going to sleep. My boyfriend got terribly worried, he said I didn't make any sense in anything that I was saying when he brought me home and put me in bed. Fast-forward to Monday, in the morning we were talking, and without touching my arm in any way, it felt like someone aggressively grabbed my left arm. I began feeling a weird pressure in my wrist, but throught it was nothing. I tried to move my wrist and my arm, thinking I just got a pinched nerve or something. Then it got worse, it went down to my fingers, and  then up to my shoulder. It felt like there was a string in my arm that was very painful, and all I felt was pain and pressure in my hand, with very uncomfortable pins and needles in my fingers. I tried laying down, but it felt like someone was then pulling me by the neck. My partner called 111, and since my simptons only worsened we went to A&E again. My resting heart rate was at this time 190bpm. The doctors at A& E didn't know if it was a stroke or not, they said all that I experienced could be speculated to be a stroke (or a TIA more likely, since my symptoms reverted the next day). They told me to go to my GP and seek to be referred to a specialist. He did refer me to a neurologist, and told me to just play the waiting game now, record any similar incident if it happens, and come back to the GP if I have another incident again.

  

I am so sorry for how much I wrote, I digressed so much, I just don't know what is wrong with me. I haven't had a day since June when I didn't stress out or cry in the night, and I am worried all of this is now having other adverse effects. Not kidding, in my last week when these two events happened, I was actually working again on getting my life together. Pursuing a healthy lifestyle, walking in nature, and I had close to no stress. I was beginning to record things in my diary on a daily basis, trying to fight depression and anxiety. When this happened, I was just recovering from grieving my grandmother. Now I am again stressed, not knowing what just happened to me. Since Monday's incident, I also have pain in my chest, and I cannot breathe fully. I'm having dry coughs and I can feel them echoe down my chest. My resting heart rate was still in the 120s average until today, when it's gotten down to a normal 73. I wrote so much, I even forgot to add another thing. Since this summer, particularly after my first bout when I loss my vision momentarily. I have terrible problems with my memory and cognition, hence why I chose Lethe as a username (the river of forgetfulness). I'm really sorry for writing this here, if I annoyed anyone. I just don't know what to do anymore. 

 

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2 Replies

  • Posted

    Lethe

    I think You have a lot of anxiety snd drpression. There is also a lot of pain that you are going through. What you described look like a TIA or mini stroke. To be sure about it, please see a neurologist and have a CT scan. If everything is normal, then maybe it is just a result of your anxieties in life. Then maybe you need to see a good Psychiatrist to address your mental issues. He can help you a lot with your emotional and psychological problems. If it is too expensive, then try a good clinical Psychologist. Please try tobe positive because you are still too young to experience such big life problems. I am sure you can resolve your problems and pains in due time. You are intelligent and i know you will emerge victorious in these trials. God bless!

  • Posted

    Lethe, I had a stroke 6 years ago, it started with a vicious headache, then I started to speak with jumbled words. My husband said I was talking rubbish, the words not making sense. He took me to A&E  and I was seen quickly. I lost my memory and didn't know who my husband was, or my children. I spent 3 weeks in hospital, then was discharged. I take Warfarin to thin  my blood to avoid another stroke, but I've had many TIA's since and still have problems with my memory, it's really embarrassing and very frightening. In addition I have epilepsy, which hasn't helped.

    I too had a disjoined childhood, being evacuated during the war. The relationship I'd had with my family was severely affected, as was I. I've had counselling, which hasn't helped. 

    I always wanted to be a nurse, and went on to achieve that ambition, nursing seriously handicapped children. Please don't give up, push for the consultation with a neurologist and a Psychiatrist, they could help put your mind at ease. 

    I find exchanging ideas and thoughts with other sufferers really helps. Stay positive and don't give up.

    Our thoughts are with you and God Bless, Pauline

     

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