Arly1

I hope your recovery goes well Steptoe. Interesting, I didn't get a thunderclap headache. It started with blood trickling down the inside of my skull at the back of my head so I knew I'd had some sort of haemorrhagic stroke. The neck pain then became very bothersome but I didn't feel nauseous and wasn't bothered by light. I feel lucky that after a few hours in A & E I wretched once because not much was happening until then but straight afterwards lots of Drs arrived and I was sent for a CT which showed lots of blood so I was then placed straight in an ambulance and sent to a more specialist hospital where they carried out a DSA but no cause was ever found, so luckily no surgery.

Hi Carmen, I had a SAH aged 48 and went back to teaching after 3 months with occupational therapy support. They were all very supportive at first, but as time goes on, it gets more difficult. Occupational therapy advised that I only work afternoons (as I was sleeping 12+ hours a day and couldn't get out of bed until 12pm) but that I should then be phased back to a normal timetable. It has never happened. When they first gave me one morning, I suffered, but managed (just). When they gave me 2 mornings, I woke up deaf soon after. I quickly realised it was probably the strain causing it and contacted occupational therapy for help, but they refused to get involved again unless I had a physical disability (it felt like I did, but the answer was a very clear no). Work rearranged things a little, but I still lose my hearing regularly and have to guess what students are saying to me (I often guess wrong). The following year, they gave me 2 mornings again. This time, I developed vertigo (3 types, one where I can feel like I am in a ship when moving around, another where I feel like I am tipping upside down when sat still and another where my field of view rotates, especially if looking at a screen. I also developed muscle twitches and jerks, I often get very shaky and recently my vision has started to flicker when my brain is strained (with exercise or too much work). The hearing loss started 2 years ago and I'm still waiting to see neurology (I was with ENT for the first year but they found no cause, I've been on the neurology waiting list for 15 months). Be careful in the early stages to avoid rushing back. Recovery can take a long time and all the support and sympathy slowly ebbs away. I feel a bit abandoned by the NHS, but I guess a lot of people are in the same position.