My 76 year old husband was on the elliptical machine at this gym when his body began listing to the left. He got off, rested a few minutes and got back on. He had done this almost daily for about 50 minutes for several years. He went back the next day and the same thing happened on the machine. He left and came home. Later the next afternoon, he began to have balance problems, dropped left foot, vision problems and weakness on the left side. I took him to the ER that evening and where they ran a CT scan (saw nothing). Later in the evening, he was admitted to the hospital and over the next day, numerous appropriate tests were run, finding no evidence of anything. The first full day in the hospital, he began to feel a "seizing up" in his left thigh which would cause his lower leg to kick out. He was dismissed from the hospital, came home, and got into physical therapy for 8 weeks. Vision problems subsided while in the hospital, pt has helped balance, but not completely gone. He has an overall feeling of tiredness and feels "slowed down".
He is seeing a neurology nurse practitioner who works with the neurologist who saw him in the hospital. She is convinced that he has Parkinson's and probably never had a minor stroke. His internist "feels" like he may have had a lacunar stroke. He had gotten off his bp medicine at the time of this episode because it was making the him feel faint when he stood up. He still has the seizing up in his thigh in the evenings when he's at rest. He's been put on the L-Dopa generic and it helps sometimes, not not everyday.
What do you think?