5 replies to this topic

[rue2you]

My neuro is telling me that this is what he thinks might have happened to me. I have never heard of this so thought some of you might enlighten me. Thank you!

[Avocado Baby]

Hi there,

sorry this has happened to you. I *think* this is what happened to me when I was about 12. I had some use of my legs and lower body, but it went, almost overnight. I was young so didn't really pay much attantion to what the dr said but he said something like, because the spinal cord is thin, it got even thinner and the blood could no longer flow through it enough to supply the nerves to my lower half...something like that.

My case may be different though as I'm not actually SCI.

Hope I've helped a bit.

Take care

[alex4bs]

 rue2you, on Jun 30 2009, 01:28 AM, said:

My neuro is telling me that this is what he thinks might have happened to me. I have never heard of this so thought some of you might enlighten me. Thank you!

yes unknown to me i had a clot in my legs which moved into my back whithin seconds it snapped my spinal cord i had my stroke mind you it certainly baffled the doctors i still have not had any answers as to why it happened 1 second i could walk and run for a bus the next i was paralised from just above my waist with no control of any my motions. i was 69 yrsl ast may when it happend hope this enlitens you remember no 2 cases are the same >>>alex

[hooplady]

Yes, also called spinal cord infarction. I only know because my cat had one a few years ago - one morning she simply couldn't walk, her hind legs didn't work. At the time I researched it and found more info on feline/canine cases than human ones, if you can believe that! For humans, apparently it's fairly rare and often mis-diagnosed.

The vet explained that some type of tissue (blood clot or in her case, probably calcification of the vertebrae) works loose and lodges in the spinal cord. Luckily for kitty, cortisone brought her back to 90% function in a week or two.

I wish you luck in your treatment. At least now you have some type of diagnosis and can move forward.

[kcl]

rue2you,
My husband recently had spinal stroke in the thoracic column while he was being operated on in the lumbar spine. We don't yet know, and probably will never know, what exactly caused it to happen. He was having a surgery to help his lower back pain and now has bilateral paparesis (left leg is completely paralyzed, has very minimal use of his right leg and feels no temperature difference in the right).
At any rate - I've done a lot of reading/searching on the internet and learned that spinal strokes are much more UNcommon than cerebral strokes. Luckily my husband seems to be fine mentally, even though MRIs of his brain that were taken after this happened showed abnormalities that also occurred at the same time as the stroke.
Like the other posters stated in their replies: the stroke/infarction causes the blood supply ie; oxgen to be cut off from the parts of the body associated with that part of the spine, yes, it's often misdiagnosed (they at first said my husband had transverse myelitis, but he does not), and probably no two cases are the same.
I wish all of you the best in your recovery. My husband's progress has been very slow. He is still in physical rehab for another 4 weeks and is doing a little better than he was 4 weeks ago. The main thing now will be for both of us to learn to make numerous changes in our lives because of the "accident".

[August]

 rue2you, on Jun 30 2009, 01:28 AM, said:

My neuro is telling me that this is what he thinks might have happened to me. I have never heard of this so thought some of you might enlighten me. Thank you!

I am sorry to hear about your stroke. There are, I believe, two types: one that involves a bleed in the spine and the other where the blood supply is interrupted. I don't know much about the former but the latter is very rare and is particularly rare in young people, which is little consolation to those it happens to. There are cases documented where an ischaemic stroke is believed to have been caused by the twisting motion playing golf and even through suppressing a sneeze.

Good luck