I'm a 26 yr old female who recently had a stroke and have unanswered questions & concerns

[SammyDay]

I am a 26 year old female. I had a CVA/stroke 12-12-10 in my right hemisphere. At that time my symptoms were -completely dead left arm/hand. - cramping in my hand to the point where the tips of my fingers were touching my wrist.- loss of balance & the ability to walk bec my left leg was numb.- blurred vision. - confusion & loss of speech. After about 3 to 4 hours my numbness and cramping went away and was left with just a weak limb. Physically, my body recovered great. My mind is a whole different thing but that is not what concerns me. About 3.5 weeks after the stroke I started getting numbness mainly in my right arm & hand. Sometimes in my face. But what makes it odd is that it almost alternates between my right arm/hand & left arm/hand sometimes both at once. I know  while having a stroke it only affects one side of the body but why after not having ANY numbness do I now get all numb? It gets numb like the same exact feeling I had while having the stroke but then it goes away...but comes back, etc. Usually its worse when I am being active. When I say active I mean walking from room to room seeing as I am not allowed to go crazy just yet due to doctors orders. I also noticed that when I get numb about half the time I get dizzy as well so I have to sit down.
Does having a tiny (questionable) 2mm saccular aneurosym along my inferolateral margin of the right cavernous internal carotid artery have anything to do with this?
Currently I am on baby aspirin and Coumadin 2.5 mg. I have had 2 ER visits in the last 2 weeks. I am at the end of my rope bec Doctors keep coming up empty handed...but they also aren't willing to run any tests when I go to the hospital. They say they don't know bec they can't do anything neurologic there. But they did before bec I went there when I had my stroke. Total I believe they did a MRI/MRA/ CTscan/Angiogram/LE to rule out pfo )which was negative.
Please help me figure out why I am now getting numb and dizzy. I can't go back to work until I feel better and I have been out since I had the stroke. I just feel confused and would like to know what is going on with me when I never ever had any medical issues before. Thank you so much for the help.
I forgot to mention that my hematologist said they got 2 positive test results for Anti-Thrombin 3. So until they find out for sure(after 2 more tests in the next year) or not that I truly have it I will be on the Coumadin...

[MRick]

Sammy,

Believe it or not, it's nothing to be worried about. You will have good days and bad days during the first year of recovery. My muscle weakness always got worse after physical therapy. Temperature  will also affect your muscles. It still affects mine after 4 years. Heat will make your muscles weaker. Cold will increase the spasticity of your muscles. And wait till your nerves "wake up"! No one warned me about this, but about three months after my stroke, all of the nerves on the left side of my body seemed to fire at exactly the same time. It will hurt for a couple of days but it will go away. And for me, that was when I started to see the most recovery. Also, you will hit plateaus in your recovery. Points where you seem unable to make any progress. That was frustrating. And then suddenly, you take a giant leap forward. Just don't give up. Keep trudging along. A year from now, you'll be amazed at how much function you regain.

The virtigo didn't hit me until two months after my stroke. Even while laying in bed it felt like I was riding a merry-go-round. I still get dizzy. In fact, I can't even see someone on TV stand on a ledge with out getting dizzy. How crazy is that?

I have a Prothrombin Gene Mutation and take 5mg of Coumidan a day. I will have to take this for the rest of my life. But look at the bright side, unlike diabetics, we only have to have our finger stuck once a month!

And  the mind thing...  I had what I like to call morbid thoughts. I thought it would have been better for everyone if I had just died. You know what? Be greatfull you didn't die. Be thankful for your life. It's precious. And so what if you can't do what you used to do. This is an opportunity to learn how to do new things. Or the old things in a new way. Like opening a bag of chips with a pair of scissors. And for God's sake, never apologize for the things you can't do. Learn to laugh at yourself and others will laugh with you. My son gets a kick out of me coming to him with a tightly sealed jar, pouting and I say, "I'm hungry."

I hope this helps. And I wish you a speedy recovery.

MRick

[positive_cynic]

Sammy,
I am sorry to hear you had a stroke. I had a major one in Jan. 2010. Mine affected my left side which deals the mental aspect and yours sounds like the right side which is mainly physical. Regardless, I know how hard it can be and your life is changed in an instant by having a stroke.

With a stroke there are no easy answers. I stopped asking my doctor questions because he really didn't know and told me as much when he said, "a stroke is a mystery." I have learned a lot of things about strokes in the last year and all of it is trial and error, my own research and by talking to other stroke survivors, who is really the only sure person that may know what it going on.

Every stroke is different and can vary widely depending on the person and how severe the stroke is. In my case, I did not lose any mobility, but lost almost all mental skills, that is I could not read or write at first. It took 4 months before I was even able to re-learn those things and it was a slow process that is still in process and probably will be on going.

I would like to tell you that I have found that 99% of stroke survivors find all kinds of odd things that happen to our bodies after a stroke. Getting "phantom" pains out of the blue are quite common. So your pain I think is normal, but it may be a waste of time trying to figure out why, just know that these pain things seem to happen after a stroke. I can give you some examples:
A got an awful left shoulder pain that wasn't there before - so bad I could not sleep on it and lost a lot of sleep because of it.
Ringing of the ears
Nightmares
Feeling exhausted all of the time
Different sleeping habits
Listing to the left and shuffling my left foot

These are just a few of the things that happened after my stroke and I had none of these things before that happened. And every stroke survivor I have written to agreed 100% that they had weird things too - maybe not what happened exactly to me, but everyone understood how odd things would just come up.

Our brains are re-wiring its paths around the "dead spot" where the stroke occurred. My theory is that while it is healing itself it may send messages to other areas that may not supposed to be sending to.

All I can say is that time, rest and sleep are our best friends we have as stroke survivors. All of those pains and annoyances that happened after my stroke have finally gone away, just as I could read and type again. You sound like you doing very well. Just hang in there - everything gets better a little at a time. I wish you well and please ask if I can help you at all. I hope this helped a little.

God Bless,
Tim

[Ness_is_a_mess]

I am so sorry to hear about what you've been through.  Your strength has obviosuly been what got you through this.  Since you are so young,  have the doctors came up with any reasons as to why you had this stroke?