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Hi Again TBF-

I totally understand what you are saying. I am wondering where you live. Are you in the US? Because usually acute stroke is something you would be hospitalized for. The continuing headache could be from the stroke you had, or a symptom that something is still not right. Were you given any kind of blood-thinning drug?

I want to remind you of our stroke page: https://www.empowher.com/condition/stroke and also let you know about the American Heart Association which is an excellent source of information on stroke: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4716

Your eating disorder is a risk factor. But I'm going to be very straight with you here and say right at this moment I am not as concerned with the cause of your stroke as I am with the treatment you are receiving. A person can have more than one stroke. You are confused and it is not entirely known what happened to you but you are still walking around at risk? I'm concerned that your provider is not treating you aggressively to be sure you don't have more damage.

Stroke is, in a way, like having a head trauma. Your body doesn't really know the difference between being whacked in the head and having a stroke. So what happens is you have the clot, which is now like a little dead spot. Around that area it will be very irritated and unhappy. You may have some fluid buildup in those tissues. It will be inflamed. Your body rushes blood and cells to the area to try and clean up and deal with the clot. In your head, there is no room for this extra stuff. So it can put more pressure on your brain.

Headache can be from the stroke, and you may have one on and off for a while. Your face issues like biting your lip may resolve, or they may not. Usually you would be sent to physically therapy as soon as possible to deal with those symptoms. Not just to help you avoid biting your lip, but to work your brain as quickly as possible to rebuild the pathways or build new pathways to be responsible for working the body parts damaged by the stroke. Your brain can be retrained to do many things that get lost in an injury such as stroke, but it is hard work and is usually started very soon after.

That confusion is probably going to be around for a while, too. It's probably related to the stroke. My concern is whether your neurologist is a stroke expert, whether you are being treated aggressively to prevent another stroke and to prevent further complications from this stroke. The cause needs to be determined to prevent it from happening again, but there are things to be done now while that is being worked out.

You will probably be angry and scared for a while. You may go through a grieving process. That is totally normal. Try to focus on the future if you can, focus on what do I need to do to get function back or retain function and what do I do to prevent another stroke.

Please keep us posted. Hang in there. It's hard, but you can get through this.

May 13, 2010 - 7:02am

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