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I Am A Healthy 67 Year Old Man, No Drinking,
Question: I am a healthy 67 year old man, no drinking, no tobacco for 35 years....today I stood up and suddenly--with no headach pain at all, felt dizzy on the right side of my body, and lost my balance, lowering myself to the floor. I coud squeee my righ hand but not my left. In about two minutes I regained my full faculties......It's never happened before. I run 8 miles every night, and have for 35 years. I was on testosterone cream, Viagra, DHEA, propecia, an over the counter prostate pills...I have high blood pressure and take amlodopine 10 mg and lisinopril, recently upped to 20mg per day......I don't think I had a stroke, there was no pain at all involved, not in my head or anywhere, and as i said, my full faculties returned in 2 minutes...please tell me what I likely experienced? Thanks
Brief Answer:
Possibly a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke)
Detailed Answer:
Hello, I'm Dr. Branch, thanks for using Ask a Doctor. The symptoms you describe are very suspicious for a transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke, or TIA. These attacks usually only last a few seconds or minutes, and affect one side of your body like you describe. They also often have dizziness. Usually there is no pain.
Often these attacks can be warnings of larger strokes that happen soon after, so I would strongly recommend that you be seen in the emergency room for this. They will likely want to do an MRI and other testing to try to determine what the cause might have been. They can then start you on treatment to protect you from future attacks, such as aspirin.
The other possibility is just orthostatic hypotension from standing up, possibly related to your blood pressure medication changes, which caused the dizziness and weakness temporarily. However, given your description of the weakness on one side of your body, I would definitely get this checked out to be certain.
I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions about any of that, and I would be glad to discuss it with you further.
Possibly a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke)
Detailed Answer:
Hello, I'm Dr. Branch, thanks for using Ask a Doctor. The symptoms you describe are very suspicious for a transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke, or TIA. These attacks usually only last a few seconds or minutes, and affect one side of your body like you describe. They also often have dizziness. Usually there is no pain.
Often these attacks can be warnings of larger strokes that happen soon after, so I would strongly recommend that you be seen in the emergency room for this. They will likely want to do an MRI and other testing to try to determine what the cause might have been. They can then start you on treatment to protect you from future attacks, such as aspirin.
The other possibility is just orthostatic hypotension from standing up, possibly related to your blood pressure medication changes, which caused the dizziness and weakness temporarily. However, given your description of the weakness on one side of your body, I would definitely get this checked out to be certain.
I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions about any of that, and I would be glad to discuss it with you further.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Kampana
Answered by
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