On October 30 of last month, as we habitually do twice a year, my mother and I had our covid vaccine. Typical pain and aches, but nothing out of the ordinary. A week later we had our flu shot, and a few days after that, my mother complained that she felt her arms and legs were very weak and there was an overwhelming sense of fatigue. She needed to lean on the handrails just to get down the stairs.
We had an appointment with the family doctor the following day and just before leaving, I noticed her mouth was drooping to one side.
The doctor confirmed my mother was having a stroke and she was rushed to emergency where an MRI revealed damage to the pons area impacting her right arm and leg. Fortunately, damage was not too severe, cognitive function and vision unaffected. Doctors who examined her said most likely the covid vaccine triggered the stroke since up until the stroke, my 83-year-old mother had very low blood pressure and cholesterol, was very spry and energetic with no health issues.
@Bob, having read about your stroke and initiating exercises of the weak limbs, I suggested the same thing to my mother. Even though she was bed-bound, she started to working on pushing herself up with both arms and limbs on the bed several times before lying down again. She did this throughout her stay at the emergency until the next day when she got a bed in the stroke ward.
Physio and OT worked with her for half an hour of rehab every day for a week before she made sufficient progress to be transferred to a rehab centre near our home where she does rehab several hours a day every day except weekends. Even after workout (workout ends 4 pm), my mother continues on her own with a walker to do the workouts OT and physio taught her, she is that motivated.
Three weeks after her stroke, physio and OT now want to have the doctor re-assess her condition to see if she can come home.
@Bob, my mother has made a lot of progress thanks to the exercises you advised to initiate, but I’d like to know can the M1 do anything to optimize her recovery even more? She is able to walk and climb the stairs but still relies on handrails on the stairs or the walker to make her way around. Doctors are hopeful she could recover up to 95% of her original mobility.
I told her to place the stacked coils behind her left ear – stacked because she has a very small head and that’s the only way to fit the coils behind her left ear where the stroke affected her. Also because the MRI revealed the damage was to the pons, brainstem connecting brain to the spinal cord, so it’s quite deep into the head.
Question: would intensity of 12 be appropriate for this? I have set the M1 to Alpha Wave setting.
Second question: how many hours should she use the M1?
Third question: Would frequent application as well as quantity be better? Ie would it be better to do three times a day of say, 3 hours each sitting or one 9-hour use be better? or to wear this 24/7?
I know each individual may be different, and I will still have her experiment what works best for her, but just to get some framework would also be helpful.
Fourth question: my mother has always had low blood pressure averaging 100/60. Even after her stroke, at emergency, her highest was 140/65. Doctors said at her age, ideally, it would be better if her blood pressure was higher, around 130/80. Don’t know if this has ever been done before but can the M1 be applied to raise her bp a little more?
Thank you, @Bob for the exercises you advised. I also looked at your video about nitrous oxide release exercises, these are excellent, and I do agree with you, sedentary life is negatively impacting more and more people’s health!