What are the signs of a stroke?

Several weeks before having a hemorrhagic stoke, my mother had a few very brief episodes of garbled speech. It came on suddenly and went away just as quickly. In retrospect, these were clearly indicators of what was to come. Although I doubt it would have made any difference in the long run, since she was a poorly controlled diabetic, I wish that I had recognized the signs. So I would like to add that to your list of symptoms.

I was 39 years old and had a mild stroke. The signs was a strange headache, but headache was unusually because my right eye was burning. i thought i was having a migraine headache. After taking pain medication, I was still suffering from headache with right eye burning. Thank God, I decided to go to hospital and found out that I was having a mild stroke. My advice if you have high blood pressure to maintain your stress, pay attention to signs, learn about condition. I am blessed that it did not cause much damage only temporary numbnes on left side. Doreen

When I had my strokes, I felt a band type pressure across the back of my head. It was like a tension headache. The next morning, the headache was still there, but my vision had also blurred in the very center of my field of vision. It was misdiagnosed in the ER as a migraine. Four days later the two strokes were found on MRI, and I was admitted to the hospital.

I am a 41 year old female. I had no history of high blood pressure or high cholesterol. I am not overweight. I was on a regular workout routine but had a stroke this past summer. My doctores have no explanation as to why I had a stroke. The only sympton I had was a headache in the back of my head that simpy felt like pressure, and gradually a stiff neck.. I made several trips to the ER for the headache and was sent home each time. they first told me I had a bad bladder infection and was dehydrated and needed fluids...that was the reason for my headaches, they said. I even had a spinal tap and CT scan which both came back normal. I am simply at a loss. It's frustrating when you're doing all the right things and this happens. There's nothing the doctor can tell you to work on when you're already doing the right things. Thank God I had no permanent damage.

My 53 year old sister had a stroke in July. Prior to the stroke she had fallen in the house. She did not go to the doctor and later she had a stroke that that caused permanent damage to the internal carotid artery. She was in a coma for 4 weeks. The doctors say she will never walk or talk again because the brain damage is permanent.
She is currently in a long term care facility.

Last year, at the age of 41, I too had a misdiagnosed stroke. The event was so marked that I was admitted to the hospital for three days, but discharged with a diagnosis of GERD. Six weeks before the stroke I developed severe fatigue and some tingling in the outer portion of my left hand that didn't go away. My doctor diagnosed the tingling as an ulnar nerve issue and the fatigue as a natural reaction to the stress in my life. Two weeks before the stroke, I developed a troubling pressure in my chest/esophagus area and went to the ER twice. A week before the stroke I developed an intermittent, severe, stabbing, ice-pick headache that seemed to come from the back of my head down to and through my left eye.This on/off pain lasted about thirty-six hours and then turned into what I was told was "migraine aura" – thousands of flickering lights for hours at a time. Never in my life had I had migraine aura of any kind. The next weekend was when the stroke occurred and I landed in the hospital for three days – still undiagnosed. It wasn't until I sought out a neurologist and had an MRI was the stroke diagnosed. I've also been diagnosed with a PFO – Patent Forament Ovale, which increases the chance of stroke. Anyone having stroke symptoms at an early age should have an Echocardiogram. If you're diagnosed with a PFO doctors will say things like "well 20% of the population has this condition". But you as the patient need to remember that it still increases your chance of stroke at a young age. Doctors really shouldn't dismiss it as an incidental finding. From what I've read, PFOs usually produce no symptoms until around the age of forty.