Despite the symptoms being mild, one in 12 mini-stroke sufferers goes on to experience a major stroke within one week. Here are five early warning signs of a mini-stroke that are often dismissed as nothing to be taken seriously.
Since a blood clot passes through the brain during transient ischemic attack (TIA) or a mini-stroke, the symptoms are temporary. In a full stroke, however, complete blockage forces brain cells to deteriorate leading to devastating results.
1. Temporary Blindness
Patients who experience mini-strokes often report of temporary blindness, which is not present in the symptoms of full stroke patients. Blindness in one eye or both can happen abruptly and may last for a few seconds to a few minutes. Aside from objects turning blurry, eyesight becomes aggravated when exposed to bright light, according to Natural News.
2. Speech Disturbance
Dyphasis is a speech disturbance where people have a sudden difficulty saying a word or understand words. Difficulty speaking may indicate that the blood clot that caused the mini-stroke transpired in the dominant brain hemisphere.
3. Dizziness And Vertigo
People who have been diagnosed with high blood pressure have an increased risk of experiencing episodes of vertigo, dizziness and even lack of coordination. The rise in blood pressure levels can damage the inner walls of the arteries creating plaque that can release blood clots. Often times, the dizziness is combined with severe headaches with no obvious or apparent causes.
4. Weakness
Any sudden weakness or numbness in the face, arms or legs is an early warning sign of a mini-stroke. The most common symptom of a mini-stroke is experiencing weakness of one side of the body known as hemiparesis, according to Healthline.
Symptoms of weakness can either be mild or severe. For example, mild symptoms could be clumsiness in the hands or fingers while serious symptoms couple be the inability to walk or move the arms.
5. Confusion
After experiencing a mini-stroke, patients are often left feeling confused or unable to act normal. While this early warning sign of a mini-stroke may be difficult to point out, a sudden and temporary state of confusion should always be a cause for concern.
