What diseases do lay people often confuse stroke with?

Stroke also resembles other diseases in certain ways. Which are the most common?

• Did you wake up in the morning with numbness in half of your body or upper limb?
  Maybe you just slept badly.
• Do you have a hangover, headache, dizziness and vomiting?
  Who doesn't?
• Do you have hyperventilation tetany or tetanic syndrome and your upper limbs and lips tingle when you get agitated?
  Don't worry, you definitely don't have a stroke.
• Do you have an elderly relative at home with dementia who is disoriented?
  It's a normal condition given his diagnosis.

These and many other diseases and conditions can have similar features to stroke. Some are even exactly the same.

The difference is in the other symptomatology typical of the particular disease and also in the lack of symptomatology. What preceded the condition (physical activity, injury, sleep, agitation) is also important.

Interesting:
Saturday night syndrome is often confused with stroke. It is a stiffening of one upper limb. This is due to prolonged pressure, for example due to overexertion. The name of the syndrome is derived from this, as men often have a woman lying on their shoulder :-)

A stroke-mimicking disease typical of older age

Older people have a number of diseases due to their age. A patient with many diagnoses is called a polymorbid patient. In addition to their underlying diagnoses, a polymorbid patient is at greater risk of developing new ones.

The body, organs and also blood vessels of old people are more worn out and weaker. Therefore, this category of patients is at a higher risk of stroke, but also of other diseases that may resemble it. Which are the most common?

Dehydration to impaired consciousness

In women, water makes up 50% of the total body weight, in men up to 60%. The greater part (up to 60%) is inside the cells (intracellular space). The remaining 40% is in their surroundings (extracellular space).

From a percentage point of view, it is clear that water is part of us. It is important for the normal functioning of the internal environment (homeostasis) and for life.

Inadequate fluid intake means a reduction in total body volume. When drinking is chronically neglected, a negative balance of water in the body occurs. This condition is called dehydration.

Dehydration occurs most often in young children during persistent diarrhea and vomiting. In the summer months, it occurs in all ages and especially in the elderly who lose their sense of thirst.

In some cases, the daily fluid intake of an old person is one cup of tea, which is very little. With such a daily intake, dehydration of the body occurs very quickly.

Table with the basic differences between dehydration and stroke:

Febrile states, overheating

We consider a normal body temperature to be between 36.0 and 36.9 °C.

Febrile state means a febrile state. It occurs because of infection of an organ or the body (bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites). Overheating occurs when the body is exposed to high temperatures for a long time (infections, sunburn, sunstroke).

When the body is overheated by a high temperature, fever or complete overheating, the person sweats excessively, losing water and minerals. It does not matter whether it is an infection, a burn with an inflammatory reaction of the body, or overheating in the sun. This condition is always accompanied by inappetence and vomiting.

Vomiting also causes excessive fluid loss and dehydration.

Table with the basic differences between febrilitis and stroke

Dementia and disorientation

Dementia or demented state occurs mainly in older people who have Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. However, it can also occur at a young age.

Dementia is a weakening of the rational faculties, and the condition worsens with increasing age. Symptoms can be alleviated to some extent, but there is no cure, just as there is no cure for immortality.

Some people very often confuse dementia with a stroke, precisely because of the disorientation, lack of recognition of relatives, hallucinations and other manifestations. Even a patient who takes medication regularly may have such an attack from time to time.

Unless you are giving your relative with dementia medication and administering it directly into his mouth, he is probably not taking it himself.

It is the failure to take medication to control symptoms such as disorientation or aggression that can cause such symptoms to take us by surprise.

Table with basic differences between dementia and stroke:

A stroke mimicking disease typical of younger people

Not only in older individuals, but also in younger people, there are diseases that can falsely make us think we have had a stroke.

Most of these are not very serious illnesses, sometimes even trivial. The way some individuals experience them is catastrophic, sometimes even ridiculous.

Hyperventilation tetany gives the impression of various illnesses

Hyperventilation tetany can also be called "the disease of modern times". In the past, it also occurred. But then these people (mostly women) were called hysterical. To a large extent, this is true.

Hyperventilation tetany is primarily a psychological condition. It is always preceded by some psychological condition such as agitation, argument, anger, stress, fear, illness, vomiting, physical exertion.

The sufferer subconsciously begins to breathe more rapidly as a result of some triggering mechanism. This is called hyperventilation. As a result, he breathes out a lot of carbon dioxide that is present in the blood.

This first causes tingling in the upper limbs, possibly the mouth and head, which can cause difficulty in speaking. As the condition progresses, the lower limbs also tingle. Gradually the tingling progresses to convulsions and twisting of the arms and legs.

The patient feels faint. Very often collapses, but never unconsciousness. And worst of all, few people admit it. These people attribute gigantic proportions to their suffering.

Interesting:
Hyperventilation tetany is a frequent cause of emergency calls and ambulance call-outs. However, hyperventilation tetany never threatens the patient's life. It is a psychological condition that subsides spontaneously and without any treatment when the patient calms down and slows down his breathing. The reason why ambulances show up for these conditions is the ignorance and panic of the surrounding area.

Table with basic differences between hyperventilation and stroke:

Paresthesias, headaches and dizziness are also present in spinal disorders

Who has a beautifully straight spine these days? Who has never had back pain or hand or foot tremors resulting from spinal disease or congestion? If such a person exists, I already envy them.

Everywhere in the world, people are tired and exhausted from their daily work. Most people work 5 days a week and some even on weekends. The first thing to take the brunt of this is of course the spine.

Pain in the affected part of the back is not uncommon. It occurs frequently, and in some professions it is even commonplace. If you don't have back problems yet, try thinking about your profession. Do you exert yourself? Do you lift heavy loads? Do you have a paradoxically sedentary job? Know that you are on the list.

Spinal damage doesn't have to manifest itself only in pain in a particular part. When the cervical spine is affected, there is often significant dizziness along with headaches, neck pain, nausea and vomiting. The thoracic part tends to cause tingling in one or even both upper limbs. The lumbar and sacral parts cause tingling and weakness in the lower limb.

Table with basic differences between spinal disorders and stroke:

Headaches and migraines

In a haemorrhagic stroke, a distinctive symptom is a sudden onset headache. But this does not mean that every time we have a headache now we think we have a brain haemorrhage. It is unthinkable that every headache should be dealt with by the ambulance service and sent for a CT scan.

With headaches, we need to think a little and look for possible causes, of which there are thousands. Not every headache is automatically caused by a serious or fatal illness.

Theheadache that accompanies a stroke never develops gradually. It comes on suddenly, unexpectedly, and is often of a strong intensity. Other symptoms of stroke, such as speech impairment or unilateral weakness, are present along with the pain. There is no trauma in the patient's previous history, but in the case of chronic diseases such as migraine, the pain is different, atypical, and unexpected.

People most often call the emergency line when (table)

Other stroke-like illnesses

The conditions, syndromes and diseases described above are only a fraction of the many that can resemble a stroke in their symptomatology.

For the sake of frequency, only those that are the most common reasons for calling an ambulance and visiting a district doctor's office have been mentioned.

Other similar diseases include:

• complications of diabetes - hypoglycaemia and hyperglycaemia with impaired mental status and consciousness
• sciatic neuritis with pain and tremors in the lower limb
• Meniere's disease characterised by intense vertigo
• trigeminal neuritis (facial part), with facial paralysis and asymmetry
• intoxication by drugs and medicines
• disorientation and hallucinations due to psychiatric illness
• other