My mom had been rushed to an area hospital were she was being treated for a stroke having a blood pressure reading of 200/160 she was definitely in danger. Her face was twisted on the right side and she remained alert but her speech was slurred and she was having memory lapses. She was fitted with an Holter monitor and admitted. She was not taken to a room until after 1 am though spending approxiamately 11 hours in the emergency room.
Initial diagnosis was then changed just one day before she was to be discharged telling us it was instead Bell’s Palsy which didn’t seem to make much since with the elevated blood pressure and head pain that took Morphine and than Loritab to bring under control.
My mom has been at mom home since and continues to have slurred speech, what she calls “frozen face” on her right side, and blood pressure that is sometimes so high the automatic blood pressure cup will not register it. She had to be taken back to the emergency room last week and her blood pressure was 183/113. Still no one agrees on her condition, she had two doctors at the hospital one who said stroke the other Bell’s Palsy. Therapist that come to the house both say stoke, primary physician says Bell’s Palsy. The symptoms for Bell’s Palsy just don’t seem to fit besides the facial paralysis.
My mom has several of the risk factors for a stroke which are:
Age
High blood pressure
High Cholestorol
Cigarette smoking (past)
Atrial fibrillation
Thrombophilia
Signs and symptoms are:
muscle weakness
Numbness
reduction in sensory or vibratory sensation
Cranial Nerves affected:
While these are some of the above symptoms they do not mean that you have had a stroke. A stoke affecting the brain stem therefore can have other symptoms such as drooping of eyelid and weakness of ocular muscles, decreased reflexes, gag, swallow, pupil reactivity to light, balance problems such as: altered breathing, and heart rate, inability to turn head to one side, and tongue weakness.
Cerebral Cortex:
Inability to speak or understand language, altered voluntary movements, visual field defect, memory deficits, disorganized thinking, and confusion.
Cerebellum:
Trouble walking, altered movement conditions such as vertigo.
Bell’s Palsy:
Dizziness
Drooling
Dry mouth
Facial twitching
Hypersensitivity to sound
Inability to blink or close the eye, tearing and dry eyes
Impaired sense of taste
Impaired speaking
Causes: Lyme disease, Herpes zortex which causes shingles and chicken pox virus.
My mother does not have any of these symptoms and has not had any of these conditions
