Transient Global Amnesia: Related to OSA???

Hi all.

I choose to spare all excess details and get to the meat of this. Yesterday for approximately 7 hours, I had lost my memory.
95% I have no recollection. The 5% I do remember I felt was I sitting in the back seat of a vehicle like back in the day of drive-in theatres watching what was going go around me and having no control of the situation.
I was taken to ER via ambulance. My family thought I was having a stroke.
They didn't find anything unusual in the CAT scan or other tests. Other tests were taken I'm sure, I have no idea what they were.
The final diagnosis was "Transient Global Amnesia" which occurs once in middle age women. My husband was told.
My husband took me to see my Primary Care Physician today. PCP has referred me to neurologist for follow-up.
I don't know how to explain it, my gutt tells me I'm not out of the woods on this yet.
Every time I start to think about what happened yesterday, I start crying.
Question: Is this one of the horror by-products of what happens when we don't use our xpap??? (NOTE: Yes there have been nights I hadn't used it, but not intentionally)

Starlette

PS - I changed my thread title to something more appropriate.

Other people here have had this, as well as one of my daughters employees. Mostly they don't know what causes it. It may never happen again.

Hi - Black Spinner's absolutely right - it's not at all uncommon and there's no reason to think it'll ever happen again... I worked for years in neurologists' offices and saw many similar patients, none of whom had repeat occurrences... it's just one of those peculiar things, and you shouldn't be upset now... at least you didn't end up on a highway or something and get run over!

Starlette wrote:I choose to spare all excess details and get to the meat of this. Yesterday for approximately 7 hours, I had lost my memory.

Scary. If it happens again (hope not) and you ever need what I think is the world's best neurologist, head to the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN to see Eduardo E. Benarroch, M.D.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/bio/10344616.html

Sporting a distinctive Argentinian accent, this guy is pure genius. In about 5 minutes of talking to you (more like a very intense directed interview) I bet he would sort it out in a jiffy. When you walk out of his office after an hour's worth of questioning, examination, etc. you will say "Holy Crap, that guy is GOOD !" Guaranteed. We've seen a lot of doctors, but this guy is amazingly smart.

I was just coming out of Macy's in Cherry Creek and saw a naked person running down the hall... Was that you?

OK, bad joke.

While this is probably the most dramatic thing that has ever happened to you, just settle down and relax.

OK, another bad joke.

I am glad you survived without injury. You need to continue to talk to people to help you process this. It is very unsettling, but with support you can work your way through it. Your husband and family are probably the best people to talk with, but we are all here too if needed.

If you do a search of the forum you will find that Rosacer had a TGA episode back in November. You could also find the thread by looking under Rosacers posts.

My mother had an attack of TGA when she was in her late 40's or early 50's. She lost all of christmas day. We realized there was a problem when she called my father at work to ask why he unwrapped all the gifts and where all the extra presents came from! It took about 24 hours for her to return to normal. No lasting ill effects from it, but it did shake us all up for a while.

Brenda

I sent Stalette a PM yesterday. There is nothing to worry with a TGA because even if you can't remember you are still able to do very complicated things because you don't loss past memory.

So you are able to know what is dangerous and what is not, you function not bad but you can't remember what you have just done the second before or maybe what happens is that suddenly you loss several hours ? I can't say which of two but for sure you are safe because your memory from the past is still there.

While on the TGA I cut a piece of plastic sheet with a very sharp instrument, I realized I needed to protect the surface on which I was cutting (the size of the piece was right, I verified it 2 days after), I organized the shed, I cook dinner, I eat, I maybe did other things I can't remember and the ones I listed here is because a witness told me all that.

When I was doing all that, I was not aware that something was wrong, only at the end when I was going out of the TGA (that happens slowly like your short memory starts working on and off ) I realized the time had passed and I didn't know what I have done. That produces the effect that you start asking the same 2 or 3 questions time after time because you get an answer but you even don't remember you asked the question. I toke something like 3 more hours to my memory to work as usual.

I say to myself if I was able to cut that piece of plastic the good dimension (I measured while on the TGA) I should have been able to be outside home and still function. For sure it will be more scaring if that arrives when you are outside your home and surrounded by people you don't know because when you are coming back you are confused because you don't understand what happened to you, I doubt you will put yourself on danger. On top of that it's very improbable that the TGA repeat.

I was brought to an universitary hospital specialized on neurology. The neurology Dr told me not to worry, he ordered a lot of test but only to be sure nothing was wrong and he told me he was expecting to find nothing. The only thing that was not good was my blood pressure the day of the TGA was high. At the last visit to the Dr. he told me I needed to be SURE my blood pressure was controlled and to take aspirin each day for the rest of my life in case the problem was produced because of the micro strokes, but that is still an hypothesis and we want to stay on safe side YES WE WANT.

Conclusion: I personally believe there is nothing to worry, it's very unlikely something wrong will be find on you Starlette, there is very unlikely the TGA will repeat. I don't know how a second TGA is lived by the person, I'm curious to know if the person is able to identify what is happening vue that he/she has the experience of the previous TGA.

I hope you are well now and less stressed, I know it's a weird thing.

Rosie

Starlette,

How scary. From what others are saying, it sounds as if it is not related to apnea, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. Hope things normalize soon for you and that you can find support from family.

Gertrude

Of course you are frightened, Starlette.
I trust you are in good hands, and all will be OK.
Losing time is disturbing--even if you know it is temporary, and may never occur again.
Just one more motivation to use the machine all night every night--even if that wasn't the reason.

Starlette, I know you must have been terrified and I'm so sorry, but I'm glad Rosacer is in touch with you who can fully understand what happened to you. I know she'll give you some peace of mind. You're in my thoughts.

I haven't had any news form Starlette, she haven't answer my PM. I hope she is well.

Rosie

Thinking of you, Starlette. Very scary! Post when you feel up to it.

Hi all. Just wanted to touch base real quick. Yes, I read this thread, and read your PM Rosacar. Hubbs and I just returned home from my parents' house. Time for me to get ready for bed. Yes, I'm calmer now. Thank you all for your concern and kind words. Still shaken up by the whole ordeal as well as my family. This whole episode happened in front of family. My Mom didn't want me to stay home alone so I stayed with her today, and will be over tomorrow again then Hubbs and I are going to MIL's house for dinner tomorrow night/Wednesday. Since we don't/didn't know what we were dealing with, Mom (sooooo concerned and I can see why) didn't want me staying home alone or driving for that matter for a couple of days. I'm respectfully honoring her request. In short, I'll respond more thoroughly on Thursday.

Starlette

A few things come right to mind, but i have no idea if they'll be useful. But in my experience, just having the empathy of other people gets us through sometimes. Nobody but another OSA sufferer knows what another OSA sufferer feels at at times. For example, there is an obscure book someone gave me two years ago called "grace grows best" by margaret clarkson. I never think much of these things, but i started reading and got hooked. This person knew everything that went with suffering, misunderstanding, misdiagnosis, the whole gambit. But think about this--

----with this condition, everybody "feels" something different at different times. Example: I cant really relate to the feeling of feeling sleepy during the day. I never had that symptom. Instead it was always feeling extremely agitated after an apnea as if I wanted to "Crawl out of my own skin" and feeling out of breath. Sometimes during the day id feel dizzy and disoriented. Now, if you tell doctors these things they think one of two things: this person is nuts and needs meds, or this person has ANXIETY (code word for all the nut cases they see all the time who want drugs) and cant deal with stress or life. Once they reach this conclusion, they've stopped working at finding the REAL underlying cause. I had all this happen to me before being diagnosed at Mayo myself. But the point of this is that being oxygen deprived can cause just about ANY feeling or experience by itself. Think about it----a racing heart and low 02 or high c02 can make you "feel" extremely ill.

--Theyre just now "discovering" a multititude of correlative illnessses either caused by OSA or that cause OSA or that go along with it. Examples are food allergies, low hormone D3 etc. All the stuff you see described here. Myself, I have an immune disease and an extreme onset of multiple food allergies. The literature indicates most likely either an extremely stressful event or an antibiotic that ruins your gut lining thereby causing a constant immune reaction in your bloodstream. To complicate things, one brilliant doctor has said that "a food allergy can simulate EVERY and i mean EVERY disorder that is possible in the human body". To add insult to injury, most "physicians" only TREAT your symptoms without finding the underlying causes of them. This casts you into the role of being your own Physician---a scary thought at best.

--In conclusion, dont let one event throw you off the rails. Keep what you already KNOW close at hand and keep working on that. Youre not going crazy. Most of us here were seen by doctors for years and "misdiagnosed" (which is clearly a form of malpractice) before finding out the simple fact of oxygen deprivation at night. For sure we are still in the Dark Ages of apnea diagnosis and even treatment. So if this happened to you I believe you, although others may not. Be prepared for that and stand your ground. This is a very unique disease, and it may be that you have more than one problem in correlation with OSA. There is no predicting exactly what it can make you feel in your own body. You have to be strong mentally. This isnt easy----im not a techno guy like so many here and i have to work at understanding all these slogans and euphemisms for sleep data. Mostly, i just want to sleep without awakening agitated. Its a long process, and despite what the doctors may say, or other people, the real brave people are the ones who struggle with an ongoing health problem, especially when so little seems to be known about it.

--short term memory loss makes complete sense in this context then. Keep to the basics: get to your ideal weight, use oxygen if it might help, be careful with your diet, especially after eating food after dinner, watch your vitamin D level, excercise moderately five or six a days a week if youre able, have a support system in place, know what foods youre allergic to (keep a journal), and keep researching your individual symptoms to find others who've gone down your path. If you do these things, you can be sure youre WAY ahead of anyone who sits in their ivory educational tower and tells you what you just experienced "isnt possible" or any other such nonsense.

OOOOOooooh Starlette, I am thinking of you and hoping you have gotten some resolution to this episode, please keep us posted!