I'm thinking about strokes this morning, dropsey they used to say in the old days. I spent the first half of my nursing career working on a neuro floor, and I feel like I have seen a ton of them.

The current terminology for the public is brain attack, the association with heart attack to emphasize the necessity of rapid treatment. Time is brain tissue.

The current symptoms being publisized is as follows:
1. a sudden onset of symptoms

2.weakness, clumsiness, heaviness, or numbness on one side of the body or hands and face

3. drooping on one side of the face

4.slurred speech or difficulty understanding language

5. loss or blurred vision in one or both eyes

6. diziiness or imbalance

7. unusually severe headaches

Now, since we know that strokes are either from ischemic or hemmhoragic causes, let's differentiate between the two a little more.

Hemmhoragic strokes tend to have an early and ptologed loss of consciosness, prominent headache (sometimes described as the worst headache of my life), nausea and vomiting, sometimes retinal hemmhorages, nuchal rigidity from meningeal irriation as blood comes in contact with brain tissue, and focal signs that do not fit the pattern of a specific vessel.

Ishemic strokes tend to have stepwise deterioration or progressive worsening of symptoms, waxing and waning of findings, focal neuro impairments in the pattern of a single blood vessel, and signs that point to a faocal or subcortical lesion.

Angiography, CT scans, MRIs can all be a part of diagonstics. Time is sometimes also a ruling factor in determing some treatments. The questions go through your mind...Is it a vessel malformation? Related to high blood pressure? Throw a clot? Is it a TIA?

Bottom line is, no matter what the cause, time is brain function. Expediency of treatment can lessen some symptomology, but sometimes it cannot help at all,

But do not think about treatment if you are experiencing symptoms.....JUST GET IT!!!!!!