Hey All,

I hope everyone is having a beautiful FALL.  It is such a nice time of year with mild temperatures and all the beautiful colors.  At least for those of us in the midwest, and east coast where we get all the change of seasons. 

I have a question, I have had 3 episodes in the past 2 weeks with numbness in my left hand and arm.  One incident just happened yesterday while I was at work.  I was sitting in my office talking on the phone and my left hand went numb.  It didn't last very long, only a few minutes but it made me a little nervous.  I had an incident a week or so ago and the left side of my face was numb for almost an hour.  I had surgery on the right side at stanford about 18 months ago.  I was there in May for my 1 year follow up and everything looked OK.  Dr. Steinberg said that I did have an increase in blood flow to my right side, not as much as he had hoped but still an increase none the less.  I had STA-MCA.  I have also found myself having more and more trouble finding words or when I am typing I type all the letters in a word but they are not in the correct order.  I will type the same word over and over but it will take a few times to get it correctly.  I know what order I want to type the letters but I just can't.  I know it is wrong because I recognize that the word doesn't look right.  I keep thinking that the numbness in my hand may be some carpal tunnel type stuff but now this.  I can call Stanford but I hate to have to go get any scans done when I just had them in May.  Has anyone continued to have syptoms after surgery like this other than the immediate few months after while the blood flow was still increaseing. 

Thanks for the advise.  I think I know what everyone is going to say, I guess I just need to hear it for myself.  I hope everyone is doing well.

Tracie

Hi Tracie,
Please, please, please call Stanford. If there is a problem then better to catch it sooner, not later, because that could be too late. Send an email tonight and get on the phone to follow up tomorrow, please.
Your friend,
Kim

Tracie,
Please say you followed Kim's advise and called Stanford!!!! I will pray for you. Please keep us posted.
Becky

Tracie - have you called Dr. Steinberg?  What did he advise?? 

Hope you are well!

-Shari

Tracie,

Have you called Stanford?

I had the similar episode back in Sept.  I had my 2nd surgery at Stanford in Aug 2009, had follow up in March when I was told that everything looks fine and my blood supply are almost close to the level of a normal person.

My episode started at fertige and headache in that Sept morning after a nearly 9 hours of good sleep. So I didn't think it was a big deal, I still headed to work. On my way to work, I started feeling blur vision while driving. Once I sit in the office, I felt more headache and a little tiggling on my left arm. I said to myself, "Oops, here it comes.....".  This is a new client company that I just started to work for not long ago, so I didn't feel comfortable disclousure my medical condition to any of the colleagues.  So I walked to my car and laid down before it's getting worse. I called my husband at the same time letting him know that I MIGHT have a TIA. I told him that I'm going to keep him on the phone, he can talk to me, if I stopped responsing, he can call 911 for me immediately. Then the numbness spread all over my left arm for about 20 minutes (I watched the clock in my car so I knew when it started and when it ended).  During that 20 minutes, I also felt very light headed. Almost passed out at one point, but eventually waked myself up and the numbness was gone.

After that I called Stanford immediately to report this episode and asked if I need a new scan.  I was told that if it's just TIA but not a stroke, no need to panic.  As long as the TIA didn't last for more than 12 HOURS and it didn't cause any real damage, then no need for a new scan.

The answer of 12 hours kinda makes me feel insecure.  I guess not many MM patients and their family memebers can keep calm if a TIA lasts for 1 hour, not even mention 12 hours.

how often do we need a new scan after 6 months follow up?

Tracie, maybe we should get together sometime since we are not far from each other. I live in west suburb of Chicago.