Hi newbie

Hi I'm Roxanne 48 and looking for help advice and friendship I have had 2 Strokes last year and had a brain haematoma and have never had any answer's and suffer terrible headaches x

[spider555]

Sorry to hear that.

I've had an ischemic stroke with carotid dissection.

Had headaches pretty much day one, I think.

[sann in reply to spider555]

Never heard Of that one sounds complicated

[spider555 in reply to sann]

It's rare but not too rare 🤤

[TonyToo]

I feel as though I am somehow "locked out" of peoples lives, including my own. I would like to make friends also, but I don't know how to any more. How do people do it?

I had a hemorrhagic stroke almost a year ago and, despite what they say, I am more stupid than I was, I am definitely slower and physically aaaargh! I am continuing to recover, but I don't know what I'm recovering any more. Well I do, but it isn't at all what I imagined.

What shape, colour, size are the headaches you're experiencing?

[Hidden in reply to TonyToo]

Hi Tony, you start by doing what you're are doing now and that's sharing personal information and having empathy. What is known in gender sterotypical terms as "female talking"; we all need to do it. By the way, that's a much healthier looking you in the photo.

[TonyToo in reply to Hidden]

So I do know, only I don't know that I know? That makes sense lol

[Hidden in reply to TonyToo]

Tony, we men know what's needed but rarely put it into practice because it can be a challenge to our view of maculinity. When I was deemed close to death with a possible disability if I made it through, my mate was there and good at comforting my wife! After the stroke it was my female friends who gave me emotional support.

As to the future, I'm still waiting for the DVLA Medical Group to decide if I can have a shot at getting my driving licence back. It would be so good if my wife and I could drive down to Cornwall again. My wife drives but only in town, and that was in a little Ford Ka not my BMW 120 D, so no trips to Cornwall. On the up side I'm only partially blind after the stroke, I've featured in a video about anticoagulation that is on release to clinicians in the UK and USA and, my brain is working a lot better.

John

[TonyToo in reply to Hidden]

I am unlucky enough to have been disabled for 34 years, the past 4 seriously, the past year doubly so. I haven't worked since 1999. I don't have many friends and 5 years ago my best mate killed himself. Prior to becoming disabled at the age of 25 I'd been on a downward spiral of self abuse following some serious abuse by another.

Yet I am better off now than I ever was. I no longer smoke (I used to be a heavy pipe smoker) and I no longer drink (4 cans a day & a bottle of whisky a week). I eat healthily and exercise when I can.

I get no formal help with any of this. I don't know how to ask for help.

[Hidden in reply to TonyToo]

Tony, you are doing a great job of turning your life around and you should be proud. You can use that determination to Google and ring around to move on further. The fact that you've improved your life from a hard place, you could help and be an inspiration to people who are in that hard place now.

[TonyToo in reply to Hidden]

Hmm, not quite there yet. Still feel like the victim... I will sort that out soon though. Give

I have been to the tip though, 3 times, driven there and back, over 12 miles! 37 miles all together. Yeehar!! lol

[spider555 in reply to TonyToo]

I'm hoping to drive one day. At the moment, my brain still needs more unscrambling.

[TonyToo in reply to spider555]

The very fact that you're able to discern you still need a little more unscrambling means you're well on the way to being unscrambled.

[spider555 in reply to TonyToo]

Although I prefer poached egg.

[TonyToo in reply to spider555]

I get what you did there lol

[Hidden]

Hi Roxanne and welcome. There can be little in the way of support in some parts of the UK. The Royal College of Physicians published excellent stroke guidelines in 2016 in a vesion for clinicians - but mostly readable by the non-medical public - and a second version for patients and carers that can be downloaded at:

strokeaudit.org/Guideline/P...

I've been a gym bunny and after the stroke my wonderful Consultant Neurologist said no to: lifting weights, inverted yoga and Pilates poses and, holding my breath. She said that I could gradually reintroduce a Spin bike (not a class) and a rowing machine. I now have a gym standard rowing machine at home.

We don't chat as much in this forum as the Atril Fibrillation forum - I ended up here by way of atrial fibrillation - but please come back and chat when you need to. We stroke survivors have a better understanding of our changed world than most.

[Franny7]

This place is good for health angle. For friendship I would suggest Different Strokes closed facebook group. You can submit a request to join from their website

[TonyToo in reply to Franny7]

Hectic place lol