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About 3 weeks ago I had what seems to be a TIA (transient ischemic attack). Basically a mini-stroke. Essentially I lost touch with reality for about an hour but had lasting effects neurologically for 2 days afterwards. I had a migraine for about 18 hrs leading up to that. Took 2 10mg Maxalt and other pain meds over that time. Went to the ER and they did their thing and said everything was normaal, except I had blood pressure of like 200 over 110. I had never had that high blood pressure. I am now treating my BP and it is normal. I had an MRI and MRA the following week and everything is normal. My son in law who is a medical researcher stressed the long-term seriousness of hypertension. So I started researching hypertension. I started at Wikipedia. In the article about TIAs, they mentioned that migraine folks have a higher risk for TIAs. “TIA is related to other medical conditions such as hypertension, heart disease (especially atrial fibrillation), migraine, cigarette smoking, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes mellitus.” Here is a link to the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_ischemic_attack

This is the first time I had heard of this. So for me it is a bit spooky cause TIAs are a fair predictor of future strokes or more TIAs. Anyone have thoughts info on this?

Sam,

Sorry you had such a frightening experience. There has been quite a bit of research showing that having Migraine does increase our risks of stroke, TIA, and cardiovascular events. It’s not something for us to panic over, but it’s definitely worth talking to our doctors about how to reduce our modifiable risk factors such as nutrition, exercise, and so on. Hypertension also needs to be controlled. I just came across a new research study that showed that people with Migraine are more likely to have hypertension too.

By the way, for what it’s worth, there are far better sources of medical information than Wikipedia. I’ve come across some very old and inaccurate information there.

Teri