How can one know if they've had a stroke?

Question

Recently my boyfriend strangled me (he was pressing my arteries), and I felt dizzy and weak in my right arm afterwards, with a tremendous headache, and was stunbling and incorrectly pronouncing words when relating the incident to my mom on the phone about several hours afterwards. In the course of the next few days, I felt weakness and tingling in my arms, was having trouble lifting one of them while doing laundry. I went to the doctor and she said I was fine, and that although I was experiencing acute symptoms, I did not have a stroke, yet how can she be sure? Where are these symptoms stemming from if in fact I did not have a stroke? She said oxygen was still getting to the brain and that the soreness in my arteries afterward was internal bruising? Is it possible I could have had a stroke, and suffered even remote brain damage?

Answer 1

Their are two main types of stroke, a stroke as in you end up in Hospital because you collapsed and were unconscious, or a TIA, or mini stroke, where you collapsed and for about one hour have no idea what is going on. I recently witness my Mother having a TIA, one second she was standing upright and then next she was on the ground in the blink of an eye. I could not react fast enough to hold onto her, that is how fast it is. It took her well over 45 minutes to come around and know where she was, what she was doing. Now some 18 months later her memory is good short term, but long term is far out of whack. That is why your Doctor stated you did not have a stroke. Because you are able to explain what happened, you did not loose consciousness and seldom do people see their own Doctor with symptoms of a stroke, because they themselves cannot recall having a stroke. Best of Luck