What I DO Know:

By Volunteer Lisa

December 5, 2017

 

     What I DO know: Both of my TGA's came (I won't say "were triggered" because I can't PROVE this was the trigger) immediately after or while doing an inadvertent Valsalva maneuver. Apparently this is a common enough trigger that NIH recognizes it ("TGA often begins with a Valsalva maneuver, which allows brief retrograde transmission of high venous pressure to the cerebral venous system.")

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     So now, I really try to consciously remember to breathe through my mouth whenever I am doing anything that might be connected.

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     That said, I also had a silent stroke probably a year or two before the first TGA, and while there don't seem to be a lot of specific studies done connecting the two, I DO think that contributed to the extreme degree of my long-term issues such as very limited short-term memory retention (still, more than two years after the first episode and six months after the second one) and limited short-term memory.

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     Happily, I seem to be regaining more detailed and specific memories from much longer ago (childhood, etc., in terms of really detailed memories which I had NOT been able to access until pretty recently. I know that I will never regain memories of the two TGAs per se since I wasn't MAKING memories. The best way I can explain the way my memory works now vs. before the episodes and then since the first episode until recently:

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     Before my stroke (which accordingly to my neurologist was probably sometime in 2013 based on the MRIs) I had a remarkable memory .. not literally photographic but close based on details I could accurately remember from my previous 50 years.

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     After my stroke but before my first TGA, I had issues primarily with recognition ... I couldn't always put names to faces which had always been a strong point.  We chalked it up to "well, you're no spring chicken anymore." From my first TGA until recently, the best way I could explain things was that I had my brain had been divided up into a huge jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing, period. I could not access anything even remotely related to those pieces/times.

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     In the last month or two, what I'm finding more is that I think I've regained many of the pieces (not during TGAs but just general memories that had been completely gone) but I cannot put them in the right order. My biggest challenge now is a complete lack of time perception. I remember something really clearly, but it might have happened yesterday or a month ago or a year ago or 20 years ago.  I can't put that into place yet.

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     Anyone else finding that?