Transient Global Amnesia

[Badger]

Scared the h3ll out of me the other day. My wife was out with a friend who called saying my wife couldn't remember where she was or what she had been doing for the last few hours. I immediately came home and took her to the ER where she had an EKG, MRI brain scan, various tests and was kept over night for observation. By morning she was fine but still has no memory of the previous day.

Transient Global Amnesia generally occurs in folks over 60. There are no warning signs, they don't know what brings it on, it generally last for less than 24 hours, there are no lasting effects, and it may not ever happen again.

I never heard of this before but hope it never happens again. I just thought it was worth mentioning here.

Cheers!

[MRG]

Thanks, hope DW is feeling better.

I had an episode about 8 years ago. Weirdest day of my life. I insisted on going to w*rk as there was a guy I wanted to interview. DW saw me in the morning, knew there was something wrong with me but somehow I convinced her to let me go.

I finally get hauled off in an ambulance and taken to a trauma center as the EMTs thought I had a stroke. The DR. that treated me knew almost immediately what it was. Did a CT to be sure but a few hours later I drove home. Still only remember bits and pieces of the day. The interview, it was almost over when I told the guy, I was too confused, and we'd need to redo it. Two days later I recalled everything he'd said as he said it all a second time.

They suggested stress may have been a factor in mine. I certainly was full of it.

I had some migraine like headaches for a while, and a lingering feeling of confusion for a couple of weeks. My PCP did order another CT (perhaps with contrast), nothing was found. A few weeks later all that was left was a hole in my memory of that 1/2 day.

[jabbahop]

wow this might explain an episode I had a couple of months ago while riding my bike home. There is a short but steep hill right before home that I have no recollection of climbing. I have memory just before the hill and became aware again on the way down but nothing on the way up. Climbing it takes only a minute. I probably should have gone to the doctor but it was so short I thought maybe I imagined it.


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[sengsational]

Heh, Around our house, we say "TIA" as a joke/excuse when we do something dumb. Not really a laughing matter, though. We've had some folks in our family experience them and live another 20 years without any (noticeable) ones.

[Badger]

Thanks for relating the experiences. Although the doctors explained the phenomenon as best they could it helps to have others with the actual experience confirm it may just be an isolated event.

I almost didn't answer the call from her friend since it just listed a phone number for the incoming call and I get tired of all the robocalls and unsolicited sales calls. I will now be installing all of her friends phone numbers on my cell phone directory to make sure I can identify incoming calls in case of any future emergencies.

Cheers!

[steveark]

Hey, I never thought I'd meet anyone else that had my Gray's Anatomy type syndrome. I'm 59 but at 56 I had a two hour transient global amnesia event. It is very rare, only a few people out of 100,000 ever experience one. I was working out at the gym at a boot camp type class and remember doing a push up and then the next thing I remember is my wife taking me to a clinic a couple of hours later. I functioned fairly normally, did the exercises, talked to friends in the class. They noticed I was acting oddly but thought it was just a different class clown routine I was trying since I was always cutting up in class. I did try to get in the wrong, but similar car they told me later. Anyway, after two days of tests the neurosurgeon who had seen one other case in his life of practice told me what it was. It appears to be harmless, although some recent studies link it to an increased rate of mortality, there is no peer reviewed consensus at present. It did increase the cost of the long term care insurance my wife and I just purchased because they aren't, apparently, sophisticated enough to separate regular amnesia from TGA, which is not a related condition. The best research says the cause is similar to the mechanism that causes migraines in other people, even though TGA victims may never have had a migraine headache. Physical exertion and straining, like a push up, or according to my Doc, sex, are the most common triggers of an event. It is not a repeating event although having suffered on attack does increase your odds of having a second. Anyway, after many hours of study that's all I've found out. It is a weird situation to be in, your mind works fairly normally except you cannot store a single new memory for a couple of hours. Its like a very revved up version of the movie Ground Hog Day, except you relive every five seconds over and over and at the end of it can't remember any of it. It will convince your friends that observe the event that you are crazy. One last factoid. Because of the brevity of the event and the confusion of the victim not a single TGA attack has ever been studied while in progress. The researchers would love to do an MRI or PET scan while an event is in progress but it isn't likely that will ever happen. It just takes too long to determine the victim isn't acting normally and get them to medical care and the brain is back to normal before the first test can be performed.

[Htown Harry]

A co-worker of mine went through this a few months ago. No lasting effects.

[splitwdw]

Badger, Thanks for posting this. Never heard of this before and did go online to look at the causes and symptoms. Does your wife get migraines? I get a lot of migraines so I'm going to make sure my doctor, family and friends know about this. I'm not in that age group (60+) yet. I do have incidents when driving with a migraine that I don't know/remember certain parts of my drive (like Jabba) but I think that's just either a "zoning out" or concentrating on driving so I don't make a mistake. I "zone out" when my one sister talks to me. Sorry but she is really boring and repeats herself a lot......HEY, maybe she has TGA. If your wife does get migraines, does she also get ice pick headaches? Just curious. I started getting them a couple of years ago.

[Rickt]

Badger hope your DW is better.

It's strange but every now and then i do forget passing known exits while driving on the interstate but then realize that my mind is usually preoccupied with stressful stuff that happened at work that day .

I will be sure to be more aware of it the next time it happens though. Thanks

[tmm99]

Has your wife just started taking statin drugs? I read that statin drugs could cause TGA.

[Badger]

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes and support. My wife is doing fine after about 6 to 8 hours of living in the fog. She says she can remember parts of some conversations but no images - audio but no video. We can't think of anything that would have brought this on but as I understand it there are no definitive signals. She was practicing in a rock/wall climbing gym when it happened so a possible factor could be physical stress but then she plays tennis at least 4 times a week to get exercise.

She doesn't have migraines. She has taken cholesterol lowering medication in the past but stopped a while ago after some dietary changes with excellent results.

I don't think zoning out for a few minutes is the same. I do that on occasion when I am tired or deep in thought. This was different. I now have all her friends on my cell phone directory in case I get a call (I usually ignore calls when there is no ID). She also wrote my cell phone number on her phone for her friends to call in case it happens again but from what I understand that may be pretty remote.

Cheers!

[W2R]

So glad your wife is OK, Badger!

I never experienced anything like this, and never heard of it before. Frankly it would scare me silly. Interesting to learn about it.

[splitwdw]

Glad to hear all is well.