Transcription:
Patient Testimonial: Andrew Arriola, DDS

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): When Dr. Andrew Arriola, a general dentist in Temecula, California, suffered a stroke, doctors discovered a surprising underlying cause. Dr. Arriola, tell us your story. What were your symptoms? What happened to you?

Andrew Arriola, DDS (Guest): Well Melanie, being a dentist here in Temecula, it all of a sudden felt almost like I had given myself an injection to make my tooth numb. That was my first symptom. So as that happened, I was like something was definitely going wrong and not feeling right. So, at that point, I decided I need to get access to care or something. This just doesn’t happen. I didn’t touch something at work. Did something cause that? So, what I said is I need to have this checked out. So, then I went to the hospital ER at that point.

Melanie: Wow. That was really smart of you. Because you’re a doctor, a dentist, you know some of the symptoms of stroke. So, what happened? Is that what you thought you were having, a stroke? Or you just weren’t really sure.

Dr. Arriola: I actually wasn’t sure what was going on. I didn’t know if I was potentially having a heart attack. My arms started to get a little bit numb too as the process carried on. But then afterwards, the symptoms kind of left where I didn’t have the numbness anymore, the arm felt a little bit better. As I arrived at the ER, I realized that something was even more severely wrong because as I walked myself into the emergency room I was almost walking like I was drunk or something. I had no alcohol, nothing like that. Something was definitely causing the problem.

Once I walked into the emergency room, I went up to the desk. They were helpful, but I couldn’t fill any forms out, couldn’t do anything. What they did is they took me, at that point, behind the desk, told me to sit. I do not really remember any remembrance of getting from the chair to the bed. I just remember waking up in the bed and realizing that I had numbness on the right side of my body when I had woken. I had actually had speech impairment; all these things were going on. I just remember that they did have some teleconferencing with some doctors from UCSD checking on me. At that point, I didn’t know what was going on. They had administered what’s called the tPA, the clot busting drug that they used for me. Then from there, that was probably about seven or eight at night. Probably about seven o’clock at night this happened. By about two or three in the morning, feeling started to come back. So, they said that because I’d noticed the symptoms early enough, that helped me.

Melanie: Wow. It is certainly scary. We hear that time is brain when it’s a stroke. Your symptoms could have mimicked a heart attack. So, I can understand that when you get these kinds of things and you're not sure what’s going on, it was absolutely so smart of you to go right to the ER. So then, once you go the tPA and the numbness started to calm down a little, what did the nurses notice that changed your diagnosis?

Dr. Arriola: What’s interesting is I was in the hospital for a couple of days. This happened on a Monday when this happened. So, I was in the hospital for a couple of days. By Wednesday, the situation was I thought, “Okay I'm going home. Things are great.” Everything like that. One of the nurses that had watched me in the hospital over the night had noticed—Because they had me on heart monitors, things like that. They said, “Your heart is stopping abruptly at night. It was slowing down to almost nothing. That concerns me.” So, she actually contacted the doctors there and said something’s wrong. So, they decided you're not going home yet. We’re gonna have a cardiologist check you the next day.

The next morning, the cardiologist checked me and said, “Yes. You're having some interesting things.” I said well what does that mean doc? He had said, “Well, we think you have what’s called sick sinus syndrome.” I said okay. What’s that? He said, “That’s where the heart slows down so much. You've heard of people having faint, passing out driving. Those kinds of things. We think what that did is it slowed your system down so much that what it created was clots in your blood stream. When it kicked back in, your clot got thrown up to your brain area and created the stroke.”

“So, what you need to do to cure that is they need to do a pacemaker that would keep the demand when it slowed down. It’s not one that’s going to regulate that your heart’s beating too fast,” he told me. He said, “It’s gonna be something that’s gonna actually speed you back up to get you to the normal rate you need to be. So, then you won’t feel that faint area.” I said okay. Then they said when do you want to do this? He said, “Well we’re gonna take you into surgery tomorrow.” I said okay. I had a stroke Monday. Friday we’ve got surgery. Okay. I said you know what? I left it in God’s hands at that point and said let’s go in, let’s get this done. So, we did it. From that point, it was a life changer for me. I haven’t had the issues of faint or anything like that; and I haven’t had any issues of stroke since that’s happened.

Melanie: Wow, what a story. So, what was the recovery like for you since you had suffered a stroke. Then you got a pacemaker put in. How long did it take you to sort of feel normal again? Once you got home, what was that recovery like?

Dr. Arriola: Well, actually what happened is I went in. They did some tests primarily at the hospital right after the stroke. It was kind of funny because they came in and asked me some questions about memory and things like that. The gal that did the testing of that asked the question. She actually came back and asked me more questions because she said I don’t know what it is, but you're answering these questions too good. So, we’re giving you a little harder. Again, I did fairly well on that. The biggest factor was they recognized it at Temecula Valley Hospital. They saw it when I came in, they took care of it, and they reversed it quick enough that there was not a lot of long-term damage.

After I got out, I actually had the pacemaker on that Friday. I was released the next Saturday. I did follow up tests with neurologists. I only had one appointment with them. I had a follow up with a speech therapist. They said there was nothing effected through my speech. Lastly, I had some physical therapy. They did do some tests, but I have a physical therapist that saw me. I've known him as a colleague for quite a few years. He had said, “You know what? I don’t see anything wrong with you Andy or anything, but I'm still gonna run you through some physical therapy for a couple of weeks.” I did that. I mean really my recovery was pretty much feeling pretty good.

I lost some weight. That was a big determining factor too. So that helped after the fact. I got a little bit healthier, eating the right foods, things like that to hopefully not be back in with issues with this again. Like I said, I think I was off of work probably about six weeks total time that I was actually not practicing dentistry. I got back, and I haven’t had any issues. You know being a dentist, obviously I do use my hands, but there was no long-term damage or anything. I was able to go back in and do my profession. Pretty amazing.

Melanie: Isn’t that amazing? It is. So, what were the staff like for you Dr. Arriola?

Dr. Arriola: From the minute I came in, they took care of me. All of the nurses were great. My wife had to make a lot of decisions initially because I really was not coherent. So, they were very accommodating to her. Explained everything that she needed to know to tell them yeah, go ahead. Give him the clot busting drug. Do all the stuff. I was pretty much out of it at that point. As the situation just played out, everybody was so attentive.

Then like I said, I really owe it to that nurse because I could have been sent home and still had the issue that was causing the problem. They took the initiative at Temecula Valley Hospital, I really feel that. They didn’t just settle for okay we cured this person. Let them go. They actually looked at hey what is the underlying problem. Something is causing this to happen. They went back in and actually looked at it and researched it more. I feel that because of that, it is more of a full cure than had I just been sent home.

So, they were awesome with all of that. I think it was really good that the doctors listen to the nurses, which is phenomenal. Their communication was the key there. Everybody played their role to be able to cure me. Anybody I know, I recommend and say if you have heart issues, if you have any problems, please go to this hospital because they’ve got the system down. Their patient care is the highest extreme that you want it to be at.

Melanie: Thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing what happened to you and telling us your story. Are you at risk for stroke? You can take an assessment as temeculavalleyhospital.com/sra. Thank you so much Dr. Arriola again for joining us. You're listening to TVH Healthchat with Temecula Valley Hospital. For more information, please visit temeculavalleyhospital.com. Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Temecula Valley Hospital. The hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.