Piri Weepu = reports on minor stroke

Here is the article giving details. He will be out for at least 4 weeks. Hope he recovers fully but this is not good for sure. Wish him all the best & hope he recovers fully - not just for rugby. Don't write him off though he is a battler.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=11227543 

Rugby: Weepu suffered minor stroke

Blues halfback Piri Weepu is out of Super Rugby for at least four weeks after expert diagnosis this week determined he had recently suffered a minor stroke.

The 30-year-old had a scan on Monday after complaining of migraine-like symptoms dating back to 1 March.

Medical staff have considered the minor stroke to be a non-rugby related condition that might not have been detected had he not been in an environment where he was so closely monitored.

Precautionary MRI scan clears Weepu after head scare

New Zealand Rugby and the Blues together with specialist medical services have rallied around Weepu and his family ensuring they are well supported.

"Piri and his family have the full support of the organisation. He's getting the best possible care and advice and we are grateful this has been picked up by our medical experts, as often minor strokes remain undetected," Blues head coach John Kirwan said.

Blues doctor Stephen Kara, consulting with New Zealand Rugby medical director Dr Ian Murphy, said Weepu was to undergo further tests.

"Piri will be out of rugby for a minimum of four weeks while we continue to investigate this condition."

Rugby: Precautionary MRI scan clears Weepu after head scare

Piri Weepu sent a scare through his 106,000 Twitter followers with a post that suggested he was facing some possible bad news about his health.

The tweet read: "Big morning tomo! Bit nervous/scared bout tomo!! Hopefully it's good news about my scan. Unreal to think something major could be wrong!"

It turns out Weepu had an MRI scan as a precaution after a migraine on March 1, the morning after the Blues-Crusaders match at Eden Park. The Blues were about to leave for Sydney en route to South Africa.

He and Blues doctor Stephen Kara went through some checks at the time but flew out with the side.

"Piri had no history of any migraines before and was fine while we were overseas," Kara said. "It did not happen again but it was an unusual presentation at the time.

"Because of the unusual presentation we arranged for him to have an MRI when we returned home. I've had a quick look at the scan and it looks okay."

Migraine sufferers can struggle with slurred speech but Weepu did not show any of those symptoms. He had felt nauseous and a little light-headed at the time.

"We don't know what might have triggered it. It could be lots of things," Kara added. "It is not related to any head knock that we know of."

With rugby's concussion debate heating up, it seems prudent to err on the side of caution with head issues, even though Weepu's case is not concussion-related.

Weepu played 61 minutes without concern for the Blues on Saturday night at Eden Park against the Cheetahs and will again be needed to share the halfback duties with Bryn
Hall against the Highlanders this weekend. The squad's third halfback, Jamison Gibson-Park, is still nursing a stress fracture in his foot. Campbell Burnes

really sad news for weepu, am surprised he suffered a minor stroke, even a minor one considering his age and all.

God speed with ur recovery weepu, uchiha clan thoughts and prayers are with u.

while unfortunate, this a is a real good chance for bryn hall to step on up to the plate.
ive always been a huge fan of hall, IMO he has All Black potnetial, and its time for him to make the most of this opportunity.

 Sorry to hear this.....am amazed he had an MRI after simply having a Migraine though ! These sportsmen !! Also, those MRI's.....awful, just awful  Hate them with a passion.
I have had two Strokes.....am only just 40. I also suffer from something called Complex Migraine Syndrome. It's something that causes constant, multiple types of Migraine 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. Vision,speech, balance, cognition etc etc is all affected. So it is like having mini Strokes constantly. And the Neurologists are baffled by it. 
More and more Rugby Players seem to be presenting with these types of issues and it is a massive concern. It's not something that can be cured. The medication is horrific and the disabling factors are horrendous. 
It also increases the risk of Stroke....
Is it the increase in head knocks ? Something they are taking ? Increased travel ? Or a mixture of them  ? 
The concern the Governing bodies are being more of less forced to show now re head knocks is not going far enough. 

 
Wow ... that must be tough to live with, becs.

I didn't know.

Your a tough cookie!! Hats off to you!!

One would have thought that in this day and age they woulda figured out what's causing this nightmare.

Surely??

I guess you went elsewhere for a second opinion, right?

Of course you did.

You didn't perhaps have trauma to the head that's brought the migraines on? Car accident?

None of my business. By all means don't feel pressured.

I'm just curious.

 Ahh Becs you and my Missus are birds of a feather there ,a decade of crippling migraines she suffered ,I got close to kicking doctors arses with their condescending rubbish .When the pain is so immense it leaves you virtually blind and debilitated it is infuriating to have it written off as a 'headache" and try to force ergotomine on her even though shes allergic and stopped breathing first time she used it . As for MRIs ,they put me in that steel coffin with what sounds like hammers bashing on it and actually got my shoulders wedged in the damnable machine ,it took a bunch of technicians an hour to dismantle the tray and pull me out !I dips me lid to you.

Duplicate

 Oh your poor wife  My sympathies, seriously. I hope she finds some relief.
As for your experience.....oh my ! I am terrified of that thing. Seriously, I am more scared of that than anything else ! Am very claustrophobic, so you can imagine. Have had two Brain scans...they put a helmet on you for that too, even less room for you there, and it has a mirror in it so you can see them in the room and feel safer. Do you heck. It's like seeing tiny people and freaks you even more ! They took it off for me the second time. I keep my eyes tight shut until I am out, but oh boy..terrified is a word and I am ashamed of it  
Had to have something called Gadolinium injected the second time. That went wrong and they injected it into the tissue not the vein ( am allergic to metal anyway, so I always have a reaction to that ) but by golly it hurt. Arm blew up into a haematoma. Oh what joy ! 
Wanted me to have another one last November....I declined. Forcefully !!  
I go blind and lose the use of limbs etc so I do feel for you wife. Give her my best...from one sufferer to another  



And CC......I have been a cripple for 20yrs. I have other Neuro/Circulatory diseases. Too many boring things to name. Almost lost my leg about 20yrs ago to the day, actually.....so I can cope with quite a lot  It's a case of having to, sadly.
But hey ho, that's life.

 
A Giant amongst woman. I bow to you, becs.

I also apologize for giving you so much lip earlier.

Shan't happen again.

So tell me ... do you find munching on lettuce leaves helps you in any way or is that just you not particularly fond of flesh?

Has your diet been forced upon you?

Can't imagine eating a meal without meat.

So many pleasurable things are bad for one ... but one cant rid yourself of all of them. You gotta find something that feeds your soul and fills you with joy.

Look at Saffex ... he loves drinking meths ... just kidding.

 I trust all goes well for you guys who have had to go through this health issue.
With regards Weepu I pray that he comes out of this without any handicaps and that he will be able to resume his rugby career.
Always enjoyed his play.
Stay strong and cope as best you can with any health issues.

similar thoughts to AJ, i trust all is well with both becs and mrs warhammer, :o).

@becs,
have u ever tried marijuana to help levitate the pain???

i made friends with an aussie dude here in melbs and his mother smoked weed regularly.
when i was chatting about it with her, she said that she suffered massive migraines too.
dont know if she had what u had, or if it was at a comparative level it was to urs, but her husband and my bro all swear it was horrible and that weed was better then any anything any doctor ever prescribed to her.

she described the migraines as a living hell, but after taking weed the attacks became less frequent easily cut by more then half according to her and her family, and when she did get them it was a lot more tolerable, a vast improvement to the crippling bed ridden state she would always go into.

 CC...please don't give me special treatment because I'm a cripple That's not necessary.
As for the rest of it, no I didn't have any accidents/knocks to the head etc. I was ill first...I have a Neuro disease called CRPS and circulatory disease, they have no idea why that happened. Almost lost a leg after the circulation shut off, the Deep Peroneal Nerve blew and the Achilles ruptured. Popliteal Artery is in constant spasm and the Achilles can never heal. It's just ruptured again.
 Always suffered from Migraine, family trait, so there is a genetic link to these things they think. BUT, after the Stroke, they tested me for everything to see what had caused it, I had no factor to suggest a reason. No cholesterol/ underweight/BP fine...nothing in the battery of tests they ran. So they did something called a Bubble Test, where they inject bubbles of air into a vein and listen to it to see if it enters the brain ( I know, I know....air bubbles kill you when they are injected into you !!! So yes, I was a tad concerned ) Basically, they should just be absorbed into the system and filtered by the lungs in a normal human being. So, they find an artery in the brain to get a pulse on the ultrasound, inject the air bubbles and then get you to do various breathing exercises. Then it sounded like Bonfire Night !!! It was safe to say, the bubbles had entered my brain...a totally surreal moment. And it was so loud and with such force, that they stopped the Test after the first exercise.
What that showed was that the flap in my heart was opening and letting the air into my brain, unfiltered and de-oxygenated; in effect, it's dirty blood. It's called a PFO...Patent Foramen Ovale. They are where you are attached to your Mum in the womb and should close when you are born. In some folk, they stay open and, can let blood clots through to the brain, causing Stroke, or to the Heart causing a Heart Attack. It is also a very tenuous link to Chronic Migraine sufferers.
But there are so many theories now that you can't keep up.
As for me being Vegan, that is a personal choice.....but I am Dairy Allergic/Lactose Intolerant and allergic to Beef ! I am so bad that just being in the same room as beef or cheese cooking or the smell of it and I am ill...Beef is my worst allergy by far. I'm allergic to loads of stuff....medications/food/animals/plant life.....even coffee beans
There truly is no hope for me.......I'm not just single because I am a hideous cripple....I'm too much hard work !!!


I haven't tried smoking anything, no. I was offered a lot of stuff years back for my CRPS....it's the most painful condition in the world, officially And it is unrelenting and lifelong. So a Taxi Driver, would you believe, wanted to get me some to help me !
I don't drive...I couldn't drive now anyway because of my disability...and he was one of my regular drivers, so he saw the level of pain and also had some " contacts " shall we say. Personally, I've never taken any drug like that and I don't like taking medicinal drugs either. My body tends to reject foreign bodies ( ha ha ha ! ) I am so allergic to most things, that I should imagine that I would probably even have one puff and die......I know that the smell of it makes me want to throw up, so ?

There are a lot of drugs on the market for Migraine now.....some Dr's are sure it is Serotonin related, others the spasms in the arteries ( which is why smoking dope might help as it relaxes muscles and therefore the arteries ), some say it is over stimulation of the nerves; they get into a cycle that they can't break from...they list goes on and on.
My Consultant wants to give me Botox injections......140 of them in the back of my head...not in my face for my wrinkles I did tell him I thought it was a little harsh of him, I was only just 40 !! They paralyse the muscles and nerve endings. I won't be doing that.....for every jab, a mouse has had the dose tested and then been killed. 140 dead mice. Nope, not on my conscience. It also appears to make the whole problem worse.
There are things called Triptans, you have to take them as soon as a Migraine is about to hit you. They deal with vascular spasms. Topiramate/Gabapentin/Epilim.....all anti Epilepsy drugs and all being used for Migraine prevention. They are trying to stop the brain misfiring and sending too many signals, trying to calm it all down. Only problem is, they turn you into a zombie most of the time. But I don't know if your wife has tried any of these things, Wardad ?

As for the Migraines I have, it's not all about pain. It's about having a brain that is scrambles, not being able to read a book any more as the words on the page all look like tadpoles, forgetting things, being confused, not being able to listen to music, having so many visual/balance problems...the list is endless.
But some of the worst pain I have is called the " Ice Pick " Migraine. It's in the rear left hand side of your head and it feels as though you are having an ice pick smashing into your skull. One night I had it for 5 hours, at intervals of one a minute. I was so ill for days after.....the nausea and my scrambled brain felt like nothing on earth

 

Astounding … in all honesty, I have NEVER heard of this kind of thing before.

One might come across someone who suffers from one or two of what your going through but to have so much thrown at one person seems decidedly unfair.

You’ve paid not only for your sin but mine too … and then some.

The cruelty is beyond belief. 

I googled some of the names you mentioned (Deep Peroneal Nerve & Popliteal Artery) to try gain a little understanding and in all honesty I’ve never heard of either. Very interesting.

How is it possible to have such a friendly disposition?

Your something else.  No wonder Redneck and Saffex are so fond of you.

Who wouldn’t want to know you?

Awesome day to you!!!

 Becs and Wardad - wow -amazing the things normal everyday people go through! Wishing you and yours all the very best in recovery.
Wishing my man Weepu all the very best in recovery as well. Piri you are a legend mate always.

 I can't believe poor Wardad got stuck in that scanner....that is the worst thing ever. Believe me.....and his shoulders must be huge !!  


What I find so concerning is this incidence of Migraine related syndrome, and now mini Stroke, affecting the players. There have been a number of instances now and I was hearing about one player who has the same thing I do....can't recall his name ( see....memory loss  ) But he says he knows of others who are being struck with the same thing and it is becoming endemic.
I just hope that the Dr's make sure Weepu doesn't return to play too soon and, if there are any concerns, that he doesn't return at all. He's had a good innings, no need to push it if it means he will suffer consequences to his health. A Stroke is not to be taken lightly.