Did family planning pills cause my stroke?

It was an ordinary morning and all seemed well. My husband left the house for the gym while I catered to the kitchen. My niece, who was living with us, and my son had taken on jobs in town during their holidays so they expected me to take them to work.

I went upstairs to prepare myself, but fell down as I entered the dressing room. I tried to shout for help, but lost consciousness.

As I was later told; the children waited for me downstairs until they got impatient, sending my son upstairs to see what was wrong. He found me on the floor.

The fortunate thing is my son could drive and that is how I was rushed to Nsambya hospital. We live in Bunga. “All the while, the children, who had no money tried to get in touch with their father.

Unfortunately, he had left his phone in the car. Left with no option, the children called a family friend who promptly heeded the call and came to cater for my admission,” says Mulindwa who regained consciousness later that evening.

Unable to talk and move
I, however, could not talk or move because my right hand-side was paralysed from head to toe. The doctors at Nsambya referred me to the Agha Khan Hospital for a CT scan before sending me to Mulago Hospital.

“I spent several months without saying a word and two months without walking,” she recalls.

For somebody as independent minded as Mulindwa, a sudden dependence was more than she could take.

“I am a perfectionist, one of my biggest frustrations was seeing things going wrong yet I could do nothing about them. I had to learn how to walk and talk again by taking little steps and using nursery rhymes.”

Doctors baffled
For a while, doctors failed to establish what had caused the stroke.

"After undertaking a number of medical examinations, all which returned negative, Dr. Edward Ddumba, who handled my case at Mulago, asked if I was taking contraceptive pills.

“I signaled yes." "'For how long,' he asked, and I indicated over fi ve years.”

What is a stroke?

Dr Edward Ddumba
You probably know someone who has suffered a stroke before. Annually, over one million people suffer strokes worldwide and are not discriminatory when it comes to age, status or social standing, although risk increases with old age.

Nearly 60% of people who suffer from stroke die before they can receive medical care. Even when patients access health facilities, many are disabled and need lifetime treatment at a high financial cost.

What is stroke?
Stroke arises from diseased blood vessels that supply the brain. The brain can only function if blood is flowing through it. When this is interrupted, the brain loses the supply of oxygen, glucose and other nutrients.

What causes a stroke?
Strokes are caused by blockages within blood vessels preventing the flow of blood into the brain. The commonest cause of this blockage is the build-up of fat deposits on the inner walls of blood vessels that supply the brain. 

This makes the blood vessels narrower and less flexible.

When this happens, the blood vessels are more likely to get blocked by blood clots. This leads to lack of blood supply to a certain part of the brain and the affected part eventually dies.

On average one in ten stroke patients suffer from a bleed into the brain due to a ruptured blood vessel. This is, in most times associated with high blood pressure.

Symptoms of a stroke
Sudden weakness or numbness of the face, arm or leg most often on one side of the body. 

Other Symptoms include confusion, difficulty with speech, sight in one or both eyes, walking, dizziness and loss of balance or coordination.

Severe headache with no known cause, fainting or unconsciousness are also signs.