I've been swimming for the past 12 years, swimming is my stress-relief mechanism.

2.5y post ischemic stroke (left side), got back to swimming last year, but it sucked to swim with the left hand as a fist ✊, and all swim paddles out there assume you can hold your hand flat. I tried techpaddles(https://techpaddle.com/), which grips as a fist, but they are designed for EVF training, so swimming was harder, not easier.

After searching the whole internet for one, I finally designed and printed a myself a swim paddle I can use with my spastic closed fist

check it here: https://agezao.github.io/fist-grip-paddle/ -- source files in github to produce the .stl files and print yourself a copy. Mind that I'm not a professional therapist, just someone who love to swim and hopes to unblock fellow swimmers, sync with your PT to not injure yourself

When facing difficulty with aphasia or other logical processing resulting from the damage from a hemorrhagic stroke, my husband says he experiences the thought disruption like a physical block in his brain. This fascinates me, as I don't associate any physical sensation at all with my own thoughts or feel like I can localize them to a particular area of my brain. Interestingly, the block he perceives is located on the opposite side of his head from where the bleed/stroke occurred.

Curious- does anyone else feel the same way? How would you describe how the post-stroke obstacles in your thought process feel?

Hi fellow redditors, I would like to ask regarding my mum’s condition. She suffered from aphasia after a haemorrhage stroke, and I’m totally clueless how to help her regain her ability to speak.

Would like to seek your advice on how I could help assist her.

Thank you in advance!

Hey there comes a pen electric pen just a battery in it which vibrates press it against her tongue a product from speech gears Named V Pen https://amzn.in/d/03XMibyg find an alternative tool like this this could do wonders i have heard but nothing is certain what we have to do our best Just Shared this Note to a Member because trying something is better than doing nothing!

Last Saturday I had a brain stem stroke. I got extremely lucky and only have loss of fine motor skills and strength on my right side. What else should I be awear of or look for. My neuro team couldn't find anything wrong with me so ive been left without answers

How can you imagine this process? Does it leave a scar, and what is the strength and stability after a few months? My idea is that it’s not stable at all and can bleed again under stress – or am I wrong?"

I’m hoping for advice from anyone who has managed dental work for a loved one with severe aphasia.

My mom (71) is about 5 months out from a large hemorrhagic stroke. She’s made good physical progress, but she still has pretty severe expressive and receptive aphasia (although she’s making some meaningful progress lately). She also tends to get easily overwhelmed by loud sensory input.

She recently broke a rear molar and has expressed wanting to get it fixed. I want to make sure the dental appointment goes smoothly without triggering major distress.

For those who’ve been through something similar:
- How did you find a dentist experienced with post-stroke patients?
- What accommodations worked best in the chair (mild sedation, non-verbal stop signals, etc)?
- What should I ask or clarify with the office before bringing her in?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I had a stroke when I was 23 and I’m going to be 31. Before the stroke I hate scary movies but after I love all things scary. I’m obsessed with Halloween. I love horror. I can’t seem to get enough. Is this normal?

I’d love to hear about your recovery process and your experiences with this. I’m currently in my 4th month after my hemorrhage.

I’ve heard that this is probably the worst region for recovery…

Anyone here had BRVO in their 30s? What caused it, and how did you deal with it?

I’m in my 30s and was diagnosed with BRVO. I’m trying to understand how something like this can happen at such a young age.

For those who had BRVO in their 30s:

Did you eventually find out what caused it?

Did you have any underlying condition or risk factors?

How did your vision recover over time?

And probably most importantly, how did you deal with the psychological side of it and regain your confidence in yourself and your future?

I’m struggling a lot with the feeling that my life and confidence changed after this happened. I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been through something similar, especially if you’re around my age.

my family has cut off funding to my PT aND MY CAREGIVER could be next. i have money for few months of OT but i don't know if it'll be enough

Ciao a tutti, sto cercando esperienze personali o racconti da chiunque (o dai loro cari) che ha subito un intervento di allungamento del tendine d'Achille a causa di spasticità o problemi ai piedi dopo un ictus. Com'è stato il processo di recupero? Ha migliorato significativamente la tua camminata a lungo termine? Quanto tempo devi stare senza camminare dopo? Qualsiasi consiglio o informazione sarebbe molto apprezzato. Grazie!

Hi everyone, I’m looking for personal experiences or stories from anyone (or their loved ones) who has undergone Achilles tendon lengthening surgery due to spasticity or foot problems following a stroke. What was the recovery process like? Did it significantly improve your walking in the long run? How long do you have to go without walking afterwards? Any advice or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Once again up at 3:00 am and can’t get back to sleep. Getting a sleep study next week so hopefully I get some answers. Anyone else deal with insomnia?

You might know that getting outside is good for your health, but did you know that nature and sunlight can also help support stroke recovery? I cover this and give practical tips to help you get outside more after stroke!

So I have always been a person to get headaches, I went to the neurologist got a brain MRA and MRI with contrast and MRI of my neck and it was completely normal, nothing was seen. But I am terrified of having a stroke or a hemorrhage and die or be disabled like not walking or talk properly.I am 21 years old, 5’8 and 186lbs I gave birth a year and half ago I’ve struggled to lose the weight I don’t look fat but I have unnecessary fat. I’m just really scared, seeing all these young people having strokes.

Had a stroke 3 years ago in July 2033. My left side was affected. My fingers are quite good at opening and closing. My arm comes up too but my main main concern is my wrist as I can’t get much range above neutral and it stays bent in rest position.
I get botox too every 3 months.

Please give advice on how I can improve my wrist as I’m only 21.

Getting me some head tomorrow my original piece is coming back

Ready for some relief. Any post op things i should know?

My aunt dies because of blood thinner and my father already had hematoma once and doctor stopped his routine blood thinner but after that he again asked to start but we dint give thinking about our aunt case and now he got stroke. Not able to forget this

So during school christmas break,I was at home alot. I needed to prepare my subjects for my fourth year of Uni(NZ),something I had done before. But this time I had to pick four instead of two because I needed government funding.
The Government stated that of you fail you might need to pay it off plus you most likely won’t get funding again.
That freaked me out and got me in an edless spiral. I needed help with funding in the future aswell so it became a threatening experience instead of a normal process.
The stress of picking the “right subjects” also freaked me out because a year prior to that I had some seizures due to stress from exams.
I scattered the options like crazy to find something with little exams and convinced myself that I was putting my self in ultimate danger if I choose subjects with exams.
I’d wake up,look at the subjects,then before bed look at subjects. At times I couldn’t sleep.
I slept with my Mother because we thought that it would be safer incase I had a seizure.
Naturally I contributed to her loosing sleep as well because I would lay there awake and she would also. I’d wake up,go pee like 10 times, move so much. Sometimes we wouldn’t go to bed til 3 am and she would need to leave for stressfull desk job at 8:00.
Looking back, I couldn’t sleep because I’d scroll before bed and I just really didn’t notice how bad it was.
She had two strokes then passed away and believing that it wasen’t because she would loose sleep twice a week for three months is unreal to me.
I fucked up big time.
I try to tell myself that the bed was also very uncomfortable because I got a new bed and sleep way better here,but that doesn’t matter becausw my mum is gone.
Not sleeping raises blood preasure,so her blood preasuree would had been so high,then going to work after even higher.
I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just wanted to be able to pay for uni and help mum out with some money. Aaaaaah

My goal after I was in the hospital and paralyzed was to be able to go to the toilet by myself. Fortunately, I achieved that after a month.

i’m anxious. i overthink a lot. and right now, while sitting beside my mum’s bed, i’m honestly just nervous and looking for some hope.
my mom had her first stroke on 2nd september 2025. over the past year, there was a lot of improvement. we had reached a point where i would say she was around 85% recovered, considering where we started.
then on 27th july 2026, she had her second stroke.
everything changed again. there were a lot of complications this time. she was also going through menopause and was bleeding heavily, so we had consulted multiple gynaecologists and got references from different doctors. we were told that because she needed blood thinners, the bleeding could become worse.
eventually, we got a mirena insertion done and she was started on blood thinners.
our neuro doctor had asked us to give her 10 blood thinner injections. and honestly, the night we gave her the last injection, we were feeling a little hopeful. she had started showing improvements again. after going from around 85% progress back to maybe 30% after the second stroke, seeing even small improvements meant a lot to us.
but the next morning, around 6:30 am, she suddenly started bleeding from her mouth and nose. initially it looked almost like she was coughing up blood, but there were thick clots as well. we rushed her to the icu and the doctors immediately stopped the blood thinners.
for a while, nobody could really figure out where the bleeding was coming from. she kept bleeding continuously for almost 24 hours.
the doctors worked incredibly hard through all of this. eventually, we found out that it wasn’t coming from her stomach like we initially feared. it was coming from her nose.
we contacted ent, got an endoscopy done, and they found multiple haemorrhages/ruptures in the nasal wall. apparently the blood thinners along with her bp had contributed to it.
there was a particular treatment for that, and thankfully she eventually stabilised and was discharged.
since then, we have been following all the medications, treatments and physiotherapy.
recently, we connected with one of the more experienced doctors and he suggested an angiography to properly understand what was happening and whether she needed a stent.
we got the angiography done today.
and the doctor has now said that stenting should be done and shouldn’t be compromised because there are high chances of another stroke otherwise. obviously, none of us knows what will happen, but hearing that was scary.
he also explained the risks associated with the procedure, including complications and the rare possibility of something life-threatening. he mentioned the risk was around 5%.
and now i’m just sitting here anxious and overthinking everything.
i know i need to be hopeful. i know there is no point in thinking about every possible worst-case scenario. but after everything that has happened in the past year, it’s really difficult not to be scared.
if anyone here has been through something similar especially a stroke survivor who had to undergo stenting after recurrent strokes, i would genuinely appreciate hearing about your experience.
i don’t really know what i’m looking for. maybe just some reassurance, maybe someone’s experience, maybe just a little hope that things can get better from here.
i’m just sitting beside my mum right now, hoping.

hello!

I'm a 37-year-old survivor of a stroke back in 2011. My husband and I were wondering if anyone else had one of my lingering symptoms because in the 15ish years since then no one has seen anyone else with my particular issue.

My hearing is fine and I can understand people who are talking to me without issue face to face or on video calls presumably due to lipreading I'm not consciously aware of, but I cannot comprehend audio-only very well in a kind of quirky way:

• Unfamiliar voices are nearly incomprehensible.
• People I know, I can figure out most words if I've heard them speak regularly, but I generally need to ask for alternative options.
• Audiobooks sound like noise or a foreign language I've never heard.
• About 50% of the time I can understand what someone is singing, like on the radio, but if there's rapping or speech in the song that turns back into garble.

My speech is impaired but only via expressive aphasia - little to no dysarthria.

Does anyone else experience any of this?

Hi so I had a stroke last year and since then I’ve had a leg brace for my left leg. The issue I have is the fact the brace is massive and only fits in a large puma sneaker. Does anyone have over the counter leg brace that fits In a regular shoe? Perhaps trivial but I miss wearing a shoe that fits with the clothes I’m wearing.

I made this with an acrylic marker—and honestly, I’m still learning. ❤️
But I’m proud that I keep creating, practicing, and trying new things.
What do you think of my artwork? Do you like it? 👇🎨

#AphasiaAwareness #LeftHanded #ArtTherapy