Post stroke pain

[Melanie da Silva]

Anyone dealing with post stroke pain? I feel so isolated and sometimes stupid when I try to explain what I a feeling. It is something more than just a physical pain. I feel disconnected with myself and my world.

[Doug Lemke]

I think I know what you're talking about Melanie. Now when I talk to people I assume they think less of me because of the way I sound. It's nothing they do, I mean I know I'm creating this "issue" myself, but either way it has caused me to have fewer interactions with others. I feel myself dissconnecting with the world and it's my fault. Unfortuately I don't know how to fix it. I'm hoping that over time I'll get better and back to my old self and this won't be as big of a problem as it is right now.

(I'm pretty new to all this, the stroke that caused the damage only happened a couple of months ago.)

[Melanie da Silva]

When the stroke first occurred, I was not having pain and I was so determined to regain use of my body. I worked really hard at therapy. I had speech, physical and occupational therapy. I returned to work within a month, but that was probably premature. But I needed to work and I was afraid for my job.
Months later, this pain developed and I feel I have digressed. I avoid social situations. I feel ashamed. I dont know why. People are well meaning, but say things that hurt. I almost feel like I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had 2 other major traumatic events happen within 2 years prior to the stroke. My 25 year old daughter was in a near fatal roll over car accident and spent a month in Trauma ICU on a ventilator. She did survive and has recovered. I brought her home with me after she was discharged from the hospital and my husband dealt with the stress by starting an online romance. He carried on for a year with this person, all the while denying it. After a year I divorced him. He has since married this woman. I had the stroke a few months later.

[Doug Lemke]

It sounds like you've had a rough few years. I hope you and your daughter are on the mend. If you don't mind my asking, what caused the stroke?

[Melanie da Silva]

It was a spontaneous brain bleed. They never determined the exact cause. The neurologist said maybe a weak vessel from birth. I'm an RN. I know that medicine is not an exact science. It's a lot of educated guessing at best. I think this is part of the difficulty for me. If they dont know why or what caused it, and there is no treatment, how can I know that it wont happen again? That is hard to live with. But I try not to dwell on that too much. I know that I was under a lot of stress and I had begun to bruise a lot. I mean big obvious bruises without a cause. My theory is that I had a vitamin difficiency but the doctors dont agree with me. Anyway, one of the things I do daily is take a whole food supplement by Natures Way called Alive. It has every nutrient you can imagine. I dont bruise anymore.