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SUDDEN READING INCOMPREHENSION BLURRED VISION

LionChild

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Birmingham UK
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I picked up a book yesterday to do some reading and couldn't make sense of what I was trying to read, and my vision was bit blurry trying to read the print as well. I had to read and re-read what I read. I felt fine, and no other parts of my body that I was aware of, were affected. When I stopped reading, still I felt perfectly normal and when I went on to read later, I had no problem with understanding... But this very suddenly not being able to understand what I was reading, worried me. Do you think this was a transient ischemic attack? I have not had anything like this happen before as far as I know. I am going to ring my GP, as I suppose he may want to do some tests, but I am bothered about going to hospital at this time with all this Covid still about everywhere...but it seems I may have to.
 
My dad had a TIA and my understanding of his is that they are supposed to be weird (and scary) but don't reoccur.

No chance you were hypo at the time?
 
If you suspect a TIA, might want to get in touch with your GP indeed. They can be early warning signs for a stroke, and a chance to prevent getting one. (Both TIA's and strokes run in my family, so yeah...My grandfather for instance didn't remember for a moment how to turn off the lights with a lightswitch, so he just unscrewed the bulbs instead. The woman he was living with didn't think it was worth it to mention these episodes, so he went from bad to worse over the course of 6 months or so, which didn't have to happen!)

If it was an episode of confusion, you might want to do something about it. Covid or not, these things can still happen. If you're sure it wasn't a blood sugar issue, get some medical input.
 
EllieM said:
My dad had a TIA and my understanding of his is that they are supposed to be weird (and scary) but don't reoccur.

No chance you were hypo at the time?
Click to expand...

No blood glucose was fine. I have been reading this up this morning (am expecting call back from gp today), and find that it can well be a precursor to a proper stroke in hours, days, weeks or even three months. So, obviously I must take this seriously. Something like 1/5 people follow up with proper stroke.
If it is not a TIA, I do not know what it can be. But it is scary, yes!
 
If you think you might have had a TIA then I would urgently consult a medical professional. I had to call an ambulance for someone at work one morning, when she was in the throes of a TIA, she went on to have a series of additional attacks in A&E and was left with long term damage. Please don’t ignore this.
 
Yes, my apologies, though my dad has had TIA he's also had transient global amnesia, and I think that that was what my comment referred to.

He's on medication for his TIAs (blood thinner) and they haven't reocurred in over a decade (probably 2).
 
Thanks everyone for comments. Still waiting for GP to ring back. To temporarily thin the blood, I have had 600 mg of aspirin which dissolves in water meanwhile, just in case.
 
Good News is, I finally got to speak to my GP and described what happened and the symptoms and she does not think I have had a TIA. I am so glad. I just hope she is correct!
She has asked me to take my blood pressure three times in the following week, (one and a repeat, with rest between, for each time) and send the results into the surgery.
She said that because I had not had any other physical symptoms, i.e. no limbs losing power, and because there was no effect of a dark curtain closing over my eyes when my vision went blurry, she does not think I had a mini-stroke.
 
YAY!
 
I had similar last week. I mentioned it on here.

I was dismissed by a and e after a very long wait.
But I was called back into the stroke clinic the next day.

I feel fine but I’m a bit freaked out.

there is no real test to see if you had a tia or not as no real lasting damage that can be picked up.
It’s freaked me out enough that I’m really trying to overthrow my diet completely.

I feel I eat healthy enough and exercise well enough and my blood pressure is a touch on high side I think it’s normally like 140/85 but nothing crazy.

i am on blood thinners too and can’t drive for a month (which is quite alarming) whilst they carry out some more tests on me.

the reading part sounds similar to what I had I kept trying to re read a line in an email. My bloods were fine. Etc.

please update me if you have any more findings on what it could have been. Like an anxiety attack or anything similar.

cheers
 
I get similar vision disturbances as parts of a migraine.
There can be many causes.
Best to be checked out by medics
 
MrsA2 said:
I get similar vision disturbances as parts of a migraine.
There can be many causes.
Best to be checked out by medics
Click to expand...
With your migraines do you experience a headache too?
Ive never had any real experience with headaches as such but when my event happened i had no sort of head pain during the incident.
 

Holdem, I will let you know! It definitely was not an anxiety attack and I have no idea what it was. It is very interesting that you say you had to keep re-reading a line of writing like I described however. I am rather concerned still, despite the doctor's reassurance. Her main argument was that there was not a dark curtain that came over my vision, and on that basis she did not think it was a TIA, but who knows. I just hope I don't follow up with a proper stroke! Please also update us, if you find out more - if for example it turns out that it was a TIA, or wasn't? Thank you for sharing your experience.
 
I will do.
I had previously been on holiday for a week and had a week of poor control which may have been a factor.

i think from dr google the issue is they can never fully be sure it was a tia as there is no real test to confirm

I’ve had ecg , cat scan ,bloods and a sort of ultra sound thing on my neck…all seemingly fine.

but I can’t drive for a month, I think the next tests are a sort of 24 hour heart rate monitor to see if I’ve got an irregular heart beat and I think an mri of my head.

It’s shaken me up a lot to be honest I’m 6 ft 2 and 93 kg (so not overweight as such) 42 years old and have a young family and I don’t like the uncertainty.


However I’ve taken some positive steps trying to eat much more fibre and monitor my blood pressure daily etc

I’ll update you with everything I hear and send you my good wishes.
 
I didn’t have those dark curtains either

I had sort of sparkly sort of none perfect white/ yellow circles in my eyes but I could see but just a bit sort of blurred and a numb but working right hand / arm from memory
 

Thanks for sharing again, Holdem. I think it's good that at least you are having the tests so you can get more information about what happened.
 
holdem said:
I didn’t have those dark curtains either

I had sort of sparkly sort of none perfect white/ yellow circles in my eyes but I could see but just a bit sort of blurred and a numb but working right hand / arm from memory
Click to expand...

What happened for me the day before yesterday was simply that the letters in the words seemed to blur into each other. It was like my brain went numb and couldn't process a series of words. GPs must be trained to present very confidently. Mine certainly didn't think what I described was typical of a TIA, but then maybe they are not always the same experience? After it had happened I did take 600 mg aspirin to thin my blood on the recommendation of my boyfriend who is not a clinical expert, but having worked in a hospital all his life seemed to have some idea what to do. But since the GP said she doubted it was a TIA, I have not taken any more. I just hope all we be well on the basis of her professional opinion!

With you, I await your results, and wish you very well indeed.
 
MrsA2 said:
I get similar vision disturbances as parts of a migraine.
There can be many causes.
Best to be checked out by medics
Click to expand...
I have the same when a migraine is lurking too
 
This is interesting, I apparently had a TIA last July, they did all those tests, found narrow neck arteries from the Doppler scan, putting me at higher risk of massive stroke later, but found no brain damage, I have however been diagnosed as having the mini stroke as I was apparently text book,

My left arm felt like it had been plunged into very warm but not hot water, I was talking to customer at the time and said “ I think I’m having a stroke” which freaked them out lol, my hand was kind of out of control, moving strangely, I stood up and the hot water flushed out of my arm and down my left torso, the next hours my left arm felt like I had been doing weight lifting, not useless, just felt week. I had no curtains or visuals.

No idea if connected by got angina and that ended up with a heart bypass. The reason for my boring story is to perhaps reassure you that hopefully you didn’t have the stroke.

Weirdly, as it’s part of same thread, I have had that reading thing my whole life, I cannot read a whole page but I can read paragraphs fine, I’ve never read a book, mortgage agreement or tax form, I just pretend I’m reading them when in that situation because I don’t want to seem stupid, I struggle to fill in forms and read long posts on here. Never been diagnosed with anything but never spent a day out of work and had a reasonably successful business for twenty years so it hasn’t done me any harm. This is useless information but just happened to be part of the thread and I like the sound of my own voice lol.
 
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