This is my post for #freewriters 2676 prompt physical energy hosted by
It started sometime in the summer of 2019. The big bags of dog food I sit on a kitchen chair so I do not have to bend to get it out of the bag. The first time it happened I was looking down at a new bag and trying to cut it open. I was getting a tingling feeling on the left side of my head, above the left ear toward my eye. Then my left arm started going numb and my knees were giving away, I knew I was going to fall but could not stop it.
This kept happening and I noticed it was always when I was looking to the right or looking down and I noticed if I moved my head when I first feel the tinling, I do not fall.
After two years of seeing doctors and them running every test they knew to run, I had no answers and my physical energy felt drained, so I stopped seeing doctors. But now I need surgery on my hand and he will not do it until I get this blockage taken care of.
I recently saw a vascular doctor and he said I had a blockage in my clavicle artery. I do not think this is what is causing me to fall because a neurosurgeon performed an angiogram in 2022 and it showed no blockage, so I am a little confused. I was falling and had no blockage but now I am told I have a blockage. I googled will an angiogram show blockage in the clavicle artery
Yes, an angiogram can show blockages or stenosis in the subclavian artery
Then I saw this, back in 2019 a nurse practitioner mentioned it could be this, but for some reason, she never followed through on tests for it. Maybe it was because the angiogram did not show anything.
Subclavian Steal Syndrome:
A severe blockage in the subclavian artery can lead to a condition called subclavian steal syndrome, where blood flow is diverted from the vertebral arteries, potentially causing symptoms like dizziness or weakness.
All this time I have been thinking that the blockage must be on the right side because that is where I have my head when I fall. But now I read the left subclavian artery supplies blood to the left arm and that is the arm that goes dead, so dead that I can pinch it and not feel a thing, I can not move it on its own will.
Also, when I asked the vascular doctor's Nurse practitioner if she had ever heard of this happening to anyone else, she said no she had never heard of it. This is another reason I can't see this blockage he found being the cause of me falling.
I will see the doctor on the 24th of this month, the person on the phone said it is to discuss rates. I think I will be discussing who I can see next because if I have to come in to discuss his price, he is not the doctor for me.
photo is mine