Health & Wellness - Stroke Information / Knowledge Database
Knowledge is power ...
My Stroke Presentation #1 - November 4, 2025
Topics:
• Heart Attack & Ischemic Stroke – the connection
• Canadian statistics & useful info
• My strokes, pre-conditions
• My medical process
• Useful background medical/biological info
• My condition post-stroke (physical/mental)
• My ‘death cleaning’
• Changes in lifestyle – short term/long term
My Stroke Presentation #2 - November 14, 2025
Topics:
• My stroke areas
• Functional areas of the brain
• What happens when a stroke occurs
• Hyper-excitability & focal seizures
• MRI imaging
• EEG monitoring
What is PFO Closure Heart Surgery?
What is an EEG (electroencephalogram)?
My Stroke Presentation #3 - March 10, 2026
Topics:
• Motor Cortex Stroke Impairments
• Nerve Disinhibition After Stroke
When I am under stress I can suffer from post-stroke recrudescence (PSR) which is when old stroke symptoms resurface. I also suffer from Myoclonic Epilepsy which involves brief, shock-like muscle twitches and jerks caused by abnormal brain electrical activity. I have had some focal seizure activity where a small area of my brain triggers a growing firestorm of electrical activity, causing a simple tingling of a finger to spread up to my face but that hasn't occured in a long time.
Differentiating between post-stroke recrudescence (PSR) and a focal seizure can be challenging because both can look like a stroke recurrence. However, they work very differently in the brain.
While PSR is a temporary failure of the brain's "rewired" compensation pathways under stress, a focal seizure is an active electrical storm in one specific part of the damaged brain. I beleive I am mostly suseptible to PSR these days.
Direct Comparison: PSR vs. Focal Seizure
Feature |
Post-Stroke Recrudescence (PSR) |
Focal Seizure |
Primary Symptoms |
Negative symptoms: A re-emergence of old deficits like weakness, slurred speech, or numbness. |
Positive symptoms: Active muscle twitching, jerking, lip-smacking, or sudden unusual sensations (like a rising stomach feeling). |
Mental Clarity |
Usually clear and aware, though you may feel tired or physically overwhelmed. |
Can cause impaired awareness, confusion, staring spells, or a detached feeling. |
Typical Triggers |
Systemic stressors like psychological stress, severe fatigue, lack of sleep, or a mild infection (like a UTI). |
Often unprovoked, resulting randomly from the scar tissue left by the old stroke. |
How It Ends |
Fades away gradually as the stress or fatigue resolves. |
Ends with a "postictal phase"—a period of intense sleepiness, confusion, or a temporary brain-drain (Todd's Paralysis). |
When I am under stress, post-stroke recrudescence (PSR) is far more likely to occur than a focal seizure.
While both conditions are possible after a stroke, they relate to stress in entirely different ways:
- Stress is a direct, primary trigger: By definition, PSR is a stress-induced phenomenon. It happens because psychological stress, emotional distress, or intense physical fatigue drains the brain's energy. When this energy is depleted, the temporary neural "workarounds" your brain built during recovery temporarily fail.
- It is highly reactive: PSR is essentially your brain's way of signaling that it is overwhelmed. Once the stressor or exhaustion is removed, the symptoms almost always fade away.
How Focal Seizures Differ
- They are caused by structural scar tissue: While stress can sometimes lower a person’s overall seizure threshold, post-stroke focal seizures are fundamentally driven by physical changes—specifically, the permanent scar tissue left behind by the original stroke.
- They are usually unprovoked: Especially if it has been more than a few weeks since the stroke, focal seizures typically occur randomly and "out of the blue" without a clear emotional or situational trigger.
- They are less common overall: Statistics from organizations like the Stroke Association indicate that about 10% of stroke survivors experience post-stroke seizures, whereas mild episodes of PSR (symptoms flaring up due to fatigue or stress) are a much more frequent daily or weekly complaint during long-term recovery.