A woman has spoken out about her battle with a rare condition that causes ‘imitation strokes’ and fears it could leave her wheelchair-bound for life. Dental nurse Leona Hargreaves, 26, was in the middle of a regular day at work in October 2024 when she suddenly experienced weakness on her left side, lost the ability to speak, and suffered vision loss in her left eye.
Her husband Sam, also 26 and an aircraft technician, took her to Lincoln County Hospital where she was diagnosed with hemiplegic migraines following blood tests and a CT scan. These migraines, which strike just one in 10,000 people, mimic stroke symptoms such as slurred speech, muscle weakness, and confusion, and sadly, there’s no known cure.
Leona, who is already dependent on a mobility aid during and after attacks, shared her fear of experiencing a migraine so intense that it might confine her to a wheelchair permanently. She said: “Hemiplegic migraines have had such a big impact on my life – I’m so scared they’ll damage me permanently. Every attack I have, I wonder if it’ll be the one to leave me permanently unable to walk.”
Leona can no longer work full time as a result of the migraines
The condition has drastically altered her life, limiting her ability to work full-time and socialise with friends. Leona highlighted the common misconception about migraines: “People think migraines of any kind last a day, and then when the headache’s gone, it’s gone.”
She explained the prolonged ordeal of feeling the build-up for days, enduring the migraine itself, and then dealing with the aftermath, which can last up to a week. Leona, who suffered from migraines without aura between the ages of 13 and 16, experienced the sudden health scare in October 2024. She said: “I had migraines regularly for about three years. Then, at 16, they just stopped happening.”
She enjoyed a decade free from the debilitating headaches until one day at work, her vision blurred and she lost control over her left side, with slurred speech. Initially mistaking it for another migraine, the situation quickly escalated. She said: “Everyone thought I’d had a stroke. I remember having sheer panic, thinking: ‘Oh my god, I’m going to die.’ I had CT scans, an MRI and blood tests – but everything came back normal.”
Leona is seeking help from a specialist migraine centre in London
Eventually, she was diagnosed with hemiplegic migraines. Faced with ongoing stroke-like attacks every few weeks, Leona turned to the National Migraine Centre in St John’s Wood, London, for quicker treatment options.
Now reliant on a walking stick to aid her during and directly after the excruciating episodes, she confesses: “I feel like getting the walking stick means I’ve admitted defeat a little bit.But I guess it does mean I can go out, and not always have to cancel plans.”
Dealing with her condition, maintaining a full-time job has become unfeasible for Leona. She reveals, “I’ve been trying to work full-time through the migraines, but starting from this month, I’ve had to reduce my hours to three days a week. I was just having so much time off.”
While there is no cure, there are a number of medications Leona can take to ease her symptoms. She said: “I can get botox in my head, which I’m not considering just yet,I don’t want to be taking anti-epilepsy medication if I can help it, so I’m starting on Vydura to help my symptoms. You can also take it during the onset of an attack, so I’m hoping it’ll help hugely.”
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