How Do You Know If You Had A Mini Stoke Or ?

[looking4answers]

I have been in a like a dream world all day.My mind seems to function on a normal level but my left arm has had unfamilar sharp pains..

I went outside and did some lifting of somethings that I don't normally do and well before then I was kind of laying on my arm during the time I started getting the sharp pains..

My heart has been acting weird all day .. beating slow when it shoud have been beating fast ,and beating extra fast when it should be beating slow..The day has seemed odd almost like a time warp..

The thoughts I am having are seclusion and weirdness..Could you have a mini stroke and it affect your throught process but not that much and change your perspective of life..

Its just been a weird day and continues to fill weird into the nighttime.
My pulse has pounded in my head off and on during the daytime today and looks to continue during the night.. Behind my left ear is sore where sometimes It feels as thought the actuall arteries are pushing my head up and down..

My thoughts just arent all together..im spacey even as I look at the sundown and i don't feel secure ,I feel lost in space and time although this seems no different from any other day ..

I feel super tired one moment and the next I dont .My breathing is hard one moment and then its not.. I hurt one moment then I dont but its just so odd.. Is this the unreality that most speak of..Its like when you wake and you would rather be in a dream state than being in realitity ..?

I hate this feeling..Most days I have started feeling half way normal and belonging in reality but today I just feel out there..Could this just be anxiety or could it be that I have some type of artery problem and not getting enough oxygen or had a mini stroke that has somehow altered my reality ..

Or is it just feelings that most people get that they don't ever talk about it.. ?

[Magpie]

All your symptoms are totally what you would expect to have when having an 'episode' of an anxiety disorder. You'd be unlikely to have pains in body parts other than your head if you had a stroke; numbness is what to look out for. Also, any confusion or altered perception would have come on really suddenly. It sounds like you're having a bad time of it with the anxiety, and if I were you I'd see the doctor asap and reassess whatever treatment you're currently receiving. It's no fun to be living in a dream world, I know!

[looking4answers]

Not really having what you call confusion perse...I just was having a few days of things just seeming a little odd..Could be the time of year or maybe just the setting getting to me again..Big change New Orleans suburb to a hole in the wall in the middle of Colorado and a town of about 2000 and we live 7 miles from town and over a mile to the nearest neighbor.I can see the Milky Way at night and hear the coyotes across the street and see forever..Big sky country you know.. and well there is lots of open prairie and mountains that contain this valley all snow capped .


You would think that I would be happy here but somehow its not the same as my little suburb on the west bank of New Orleans where I was and could cross the bridge looking at a boarding cruise ship and be in the French Quarter in 15 minutes.. Just like being on another planet..When I get up and get busy and focus on things here .. like today I got out and rode around went to town even and got a hamburger..and saw cars and trees and life ..Its not so bad...Its just that .. its a change that I have come to accept as home but when you accept something its not necessarily something you want to accept but you can..


Some days are better and feel I belong other days I feel that there is certain mysticism about this place.Its hard to imagine what it would have been like just 500 years ago and only Indians living where we are now..and nothing at all here accept the night time sky and no city lights..Its probably all anxiety and I found the best way out of it is to just let go and not worry about life that much..


I figure im here and if I die here I was meant to and besides ..well what is dying anyway we don't know maybe its better than here..Im happy some days or for the most part its just the light and the atmosphere plays odd tricks on you at times.. Being a mile and one half above where we lived before or 8500 ft above it and only being half of the oxygen that we used to breathe and a fraction of the humidity ..it does things to ones minds..The doctor doesn’t think that there is anything wrong with me other then needing to stay busy and a nurse that lives four miles away that sees me pretty regularly thinks I just need to stay busy..


She says I have no symptoms of things that are serious and I am at a perfect weight and look and act healthy.. Im glad that she thinks that and maybe I will too one day ..Im not actually in a dream world..Im just in a world that my mind has trouble grasping so different from anything I have ever known..The only thing that really saves me here is the thought that this place was occupied for over 20000 years by people not unlike me that didn’t know what to make of the place..


They say its haunted and others think its holy ground..but it has been home to aborigines for many thousand years that couldn’t quite figure it out either nor did they try ..they just chalked it off to a place of weird events and things that made no sense..But as far as a stroke maybe not but well you feel things here and sense them and the light plays with you ,being so close to the sun.. the shadows mystify you and the quietness is quieter than any grave yard you have ever been too..Just more oddness than anything .


Maybe i should just accept it as a natural phenomenon and just realize that things never change here.. They say that this valley looks virtually the same as it probably did millions of years ago.. But well yes my anxiety is bad but other days its not so bad and then there are times when im not quite sure..Like I said it could just be the place..And ask me if I can move..No there is no way ...


When we came here we sunk everything that we had into this place.. so we will become a part of its history as well and maybe one day a thousand years from now.. others will feel the same way I do and there will be some reference of the things that I have written about it..Thanks for your help and yeah I guess I didn’t have a stroke but hey you never know.. Its possible but im still here and although I felt a little more normal today ..it still that aire of weirdness here that I think everybody feels and just writes off as the Valley..

[belle]

Hi..

I think the thing you need to remember here is that one day we are all going to die. Why spend every second of everyday analysing tiny little feelings that our bodies have...especially when they are ALL most likely to be anxiety related? I am not having a go - cause i do this myself. I am thankfully not quite as bad as i was. I would have a "heart attack" everyday and i was so bad i couldn't even get upstairs without needing to lie down because i was so breathless. After numerous tests i was told my heart was fine. Don't get me wrong, i still have "moments" when i think i am going to die, but i now know its PTSD related. My grandmother dropped dead while alone with me, i was 11 years old and i found her. Quite disturbing you would probably agree, and what makes it worse for me is that she told me she thought she would die that evening, so now, if i feel bad, i am convinced i will die.

I am a 31 year old women, and as far as my last blood test showed, i am at the moment in working order, so have no real reason to think like this, regardless of "FEELINGS".

Just a couple of weeks ago i had a heavy left arm, i was sure i was again dying....the feelings - have gone!!!!! They are just anxiety being clever, tricking our vunerable minds. Thats something to think about.

x

[groovygranny]

"Big change New Orleans suburb to a hole in the wall in the middle of Colorado and a town of about 2000 and we live 7 miles from town and over a mile to the nearest neighbor............"

Hi Michael

Change can sometimes have such a huge impact on our lives can't it? Especially when you're our age!

I get to thinking sometimes "why haven't i had a stroke or a heart attack yet? My father had angina and heart attacks up until he died and my paternal grandmother died of a stroke, when is it my turn?"

Every little chest pain, headache or tingling sets me off thinking this way, but I stop it right away because I know it's just my anxiety talking. And I don't get that to any serious degree nowadays. Yesterday I overcame something I'd been very anxious about for days, and this morning I woke feeling a little 'out of synch and spaced-out' so to speak. Maybe even just a tad depressed. Why, I ask myself? I put it down to the 'trauma', if that's not too strong a word, of the last couple of days.

And you have experienced the 'trauma' of having to move from a place you loved and called home and were settled, to somewhere new. And you have also had the physical changes to get used to. It might take quite a time to adjust, and you are going to be tempted to keep thinking back to your life before the move. But your life is where you are Michael, and you've said yourself how beautiful it is there.

There is no way we can 're-capture' in an exact sense the life we had before we had to move on, but we can make the life we have now matter just as much. But, it can take time.

My daughter and her partner have gone looking for a new house today, and I know my little 2 1/2 yr old grandson will have great difficulty in settling somewhere new if they move. He loves his house and the garden, and will be wondering why he will have to live somewhere else! He'll pine for his previous home I know, but in time he will settle and grow to love his new home, albeit in a different way to the old one.

I hope you find some peace soon Michael - it will come.

[looking4answers]

Hi GG and Bluebell,

I thank you both for your replies..GG I think that you are correct and Bluebell to.My mother too had angina and my brother had a massive cornary at age 44..and cancer and heart trouble run in my mothers side but not really in my dad's side..So its a toss up.

I think that you are both right..I wake sometimes like this morning in a state of holding the bed being afraid to move..As I lie here I think well the animals depend on me and if im that shocked and bored being here imagine all they really have to look forward to is what is for lunch or dinner.

I think they depend on me for their highlight of the day there meals..So I have to keep going no matter what.They are so precious ,Thank God we have them or there would be nothing else to watch here other than field mice ,paririe dogs and an occassional bird or antelope or deer..

Then there are the coyotes that make their random appearance but well thats a whole different story .I was thinking about what you both said and think you are right for the most part..I think well ..we all have to die..so I might as well live until that very last breath no matter what im doing or where I am.

GG I think that you are 100 percent right about the physical changes due to age on one part but well the climate enhanced what I have already so guess it shouldnt be that big of a shock.Yesterday as I got out I started relaxing thinking "so what" Just let yourself endulge yourself in whatever.

Relax and let the seasons change and go with the flow ,don't fight it..whatever will be will be..We got out yesterday and rode around..even went out to get dinner and stayed out...Then last night I sit and ate dinner that we had brought home and actually watched a movie..SHOCK..

I don't do movies or tv anymore and am getting more and more not into computers..So actually that was something rather unique for me.Im working on everything you two have mentioned and actually for me the progress has been awesome..I went from staying in bed most of the day to having a pretty full day of taking care of two horses and two wonderful dogs and getting out to see the world and do things that normal people do.

I even go to town everyday now if nothing else just to see what we can see..and usually run in a store to pick up a few things..So things are getting better..We are suppose to go up on the mountain behind us this evening to visit with friends that are building a house..Something different but not earth shattering..

The female half of the people we are going to see is the nurse im always referring to..I guess they are pretty nice people..The past few days have been a little mind bending but today I awoke with a little clearer head although I had a little depression ,I think im ok now.I want to write a book about this valley and our experiences of being split apart across the nation and scattered to the winds..Mostly about this valley they call the mysterious valley or forbidden valley...and the way it makes you feel but im not certain anyone would read it..Print is dead or getting that way slowly but surely...But im going into rambling now but wanted to say thanks for your replies and votes of confidence and maybe one day Ill be back to that confident person that just bent with the wind without breaking .. somehow..Thanks again and God Bless...

[groovygranny]

Oh Michael, you are definitely not rambnling - go on and write that book....please!

My work revolves around computers but I love the written word, and anyone who strives to keep it alive will get my vote!!

You can't lose yourself in a computer like you can a book - your imagination can't have free reign when it is digitilised beyond recognition.

I for one would love to read about your valley and the experiences of the people who live there.

Use your situation and experiences to inform and inspire others Michael. You've already given us a taste of what it's like , and I'm hungry for more!

Don't stop now!

[looking4answers]

2nd chapter tonight..thank you for your support. I never knew that I had so much to say and thoughts to unleash about our little trek from the hurricane to the rural mystical place we live now and everything inbetween.Michael