Frustrated by Aphasia

Have had aphasia now for 9 hours..........went to the ER to rule out a stroke and of course all tests are normal. They gave me a generic printout on migraines and advised me to call my neuro on Monday. My migraine auras do not usually last this long.........anybody have any ideas how to get it to break??? Leslie

Hi,

I experience aphasia with my migraines as well. Sometimes the aphasia lasts a few hours, sometimes days. There are a couple of things that I have found helpful in dealing with aphasia.
-talking seems to make it go away a little faster for me. I usually get someone to ask me a bunch of questions and really concentrate on the answers. Sometimes this helps, sometimes not.
- caffeine also helps I usually try a diet coke or even excedrin.
- A course of decadron or an IV of Depakan will usually break the headache or at least stop the aphasia. Klonopin and Tylenol 3 also help me with this a little bit.

I remember the first time I got aphasia with a migraine. I was at boarding school and woke up with no headache, but I just couldn't speak. So I went up to the infirmary to ask for some aspirin- I actually wrote the request down. The nurse gave me some aspirin and sent me back to class. Ten minutes later, another student came to get and took me back to the infirmary. The nurse had called my neurologist, who said "Come to the ER NOW."

So the other school nurse (the mean one} took me to the Hopkins pediatric ER. (I was at school in Maryland and being treated by a pediatric neurologist there.} I was immediately put in a room. Shortly after that, the nurse said she did not feel well and she needed to leave. Since I was 18, the doctors said they would look after me. Shortly after that, my neuro's parter came down. You know it is bad when a professor of neurology is paged and after five minutes is on the phone scheduling an MRI. After that, there must have been some sort of bulletin "Weird case room five" I was surrounded by med students saying "speak, Speak. We will give you a cookie." I had an MRI at 7 that night. When I came back, they discharged me and told me my mother was on her way. I said, "No, my mom's in Alabama.' They were right. I went back to school and found out that the school nurse had called my mother and told her that her 18 year old was having a stroke.!

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about migrainous aphasia. I hope you feel better soon.

Pain free days,
sailingm

Thank you so much for your response...............finding it very hard to be patient with this symptom. Thinking I have had to give up so much already and this is kind of the last straw......................been trying to talk and that is exhausting - your response helps so much. L

Aphasia is really tough....I get more and more often bouts when I have a really bad migraine, or if I have syncopal event.

Usually I can write, but not speak at all. As the aphasia wears off, I start mumbling a few words, then I'll be able to string together enough for a sentence.

They last about 1/2 an hour.

I had this checked out too, and the neuro said there's really nothing you can do--if it's really goofy, head into the ER.

I chew a couple 81mg aspirin just incase of stroke (dont' do this unless your doc says it's all right).

Good luck!