GPs and hospital doctors frequently turned away a young mother who was experiencing excruciating migraines; nonetheless, none of them realized that she had suffered a stroke.
After suddenly developing a severe headache, blurred vision, and dizziness, Kerri-Ann Wool was informed she had migraines, tension headaches, and even postpartum depression.
One doctor even gave her medications while advising her to “have her nails done to cheer herself up.”
A consultant missed the blood clot in her cerebellum, the area of the brain that governs balance, until an MRI scan eventually identified it.
In other words, Mrs. Wool, 34, didn’t learn she’d had a stroke until she asked for her medical records a year later.
Her MRI results included the diagnosis.
She can no longer be treated for the stroke, and the symptoms she is still experiencing prevent her from returning to her job as a school kitchen assistant. “I felt like I was being passed off as a distraught woman,” she added. I was unable to convince anyone to take me seriously.
On September 18, 2018, the Portsmouth mother-of-three reported having distorted eyesight and a severe headache at the base of her skull. Later on that day, a doctor sent her home after speculating that she might have a blood pressure issue.
She visited the clinic three days later as her symptoms grew worse, visiting a different GP each time. She started crying during the last visit, and a male GP informed her that she most likely had postpartum depression. In addition to prescribing her antidepressants, he advised her to get a manicure.
She was eventually referred for an MRI scan at Southampton General Hospital on September 29 after receiving paracetamol from doctors at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and was instructed to go home.
Amazingly, a consultant at University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust failed to recognize the stroke diagnosis despite the fact that the scan results indicated she had one.
After some time, it was discovered that Mrs. Wool had a hole in her heart, which may have contributed to the stroke. In July 2021, she had surgery to close it.
The University NHS Trusts for Portsmouth and Southampton Hospitals stated that they were unable to comment.
The nonprofit Different Strokes, which assists the one in four stroke patients under 65, has provided assistance to Mrs. Wool.
The charity’s chief executive, Austin Willett, stated: “Kerri-Ann claims she was repeatedly informed she was “too young to have had a stroke.”
We hear this from the young stroke survivors we work with far too frequently.