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Comments (126)

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  weddpros
  Suffered a stroke in 2004 (migrainous infarction). Became half blind. Rested for a good year. Became a photographer for 8 years, then switched back again to software development. From then on, the limits were: WFH only, limit stress, run away from job if things go bad again. Nap if brain feels exhausted. Sleep, more and better. 20 years later (53yo), I'd say I'm doing great! Also fitness helps remind me to take care of the body...
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  wjnc
  For those in workplaces that treat you well. One suggestion that is not in OP: Tell others, explain, expand, give presentations on what you went through. Not only will it help your environment understand WHAT you are doing, they then are also able to understand the WHY. I've had my share of colleagues with afflictions. Your environment must know to understand! Otherwise, you are only allowing them to react to resulting situations, without understanding of the why. Second order benefit is that if people would do this more, general kindness towards how personal situations influence business situations would rise. We need more kindness, from understanding each other. (I understand this is an advice that does not work for those workplaces where HR is the enemy, the boss is their to get you, co-workers are in a free for all for bonuses and promotions. I hope most of us are not in that kind of work situations.)
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  buserror
  Had a stroke 2 months ago at 55, after an entire life (professionally since I'm 16) as a dev. I mostly followed these rules apart from when I got dragged into a project that was sufficiently interesting that I started overworking. 12-14h days.Just don't do that. I used to do that just fine and that's why I thought I was OK. I mean, I USED to go on in huge coding benders, did'nt I ? Well apparently not at 55, when the pressure has been on for months instead of weeks.Other things to watch -- diet! With the work came less free time, put on weight etc and all the good habits I had built for years, disappeared.And the worst bit you can think of is "Oh but I'm so CLOSE to being done, I'll just fix it up later when I can relax". Just don't.I lost all sensation on the right side. It is coming back slowly. I can still work, didn't lose speech or mobility or strength, I consider myself super-mega-lucky in that.
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  hotpotat
  Interesting to see all the people in this thread who had a stroke. I had a mild and then moderate cerebellar stroke within a 7 day span about two years ago. I remember being on the stroke neurology floor of the hospital with a lot of bed ridden people who had also suffered them. I know because, within 24 hours, I was doing hourly walking laps with my nurses because I was bored. In other words, I was one of the lucky ones. Within a week I was back at work — not because I felt pressured to by them, they were completely understanding, but because I had no more symptoms that were experienced simply because I was sitting down to work.I also see some advice about listening to your body after the fact, which I fully agree with. In my case, without going into too much detail, the stroke might not have happened if I had listened to my body beforehand, as it was caused by an injury I could have prevented.So if I could give any advice from this place of experience it would be to listen to your body, and try to hear it when your fears and ego are shouting.
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  OsrsNeedsf2P
  Strikes close to home. 8 years ago I was in a bike accident that took me out for 4 months. I instantly felt dumber. The headaches became a fact of life, and the need to get out of the house early in the day to avoid brain fog creeping in became a routine.It... sucks. I've still progressed my career and made significant strides, and come to appreciate things that I never would have noticed if I kept on my previous trajectory, and while I don't think about it much anymore, for years it ate at me.
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  wedgel
  I had a stroke roughly eleven years ago. When the stroke started, I got really creeped out. I was in an elevator and I thought a stranger was reaching around me from behind to grab me. It was my right arm. I cracked a joke about it, I didn't know it, but I wasn't soeaking. Just mumbling and making creepy gutteral noises when I thought I was laughing. Then the face droop. Followed by my right hand becoming locked in a fist. It took months on rehab to get it open. And it lost a lot of function.
• consumer451
  I have not had a stroke, but a few years ago I noticed my eyesight was getting strange. There were many other things including a very fuzzy brain, and wanting to stay in bed for weeks. I thought I was just sad until the eyesight issue.It turned out I had Advanced Neurological Lyme disease. It took a couple years to recover from it. I also have Cluster Headaches, one of the most painful medical conditions known to science. Losing my the ability to think clearly, was worse.As someone who uses my brain for work, the depression that arose from losing my mental faculties was very significant. I searched TFA for depression and did not see a mention. If anyone is dealing with a neurological issue like this, I would imagine that second order effects like depression are common, correct?
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  keyle
  I haven't had a stroke but I did get a nasty tropical mono when I was young. You never quite recover from that one. I've got ibs since. My stomach just gets tired and stops. My mental focus feels the same. I sleep 9 hours a night, often 10 and I'm still tired.I feel I always have less stamina than other people.So this list is close to what I have always preached.Time as in energy is my most precious resource.Don't let processes suck the life out of you. They're there to serve the people not the other way around.
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  fennec-posix
  I think these are also good strategies for anyone who suffers from mental illness/burnout.
• boobsbr
  > HEADPHONES, blinders, and 'No'. Eliminate unwanted inputs at the earliest point of entry.Open-floor offices, non-stop emails and chat messages, several meetings scattered throughout the week and the day.This kills productivity and increases stress and fatigue for people that need to concentrate to work on complex stuff. There's also the time you need to properly switch contexts.
• accrual
  Thank you for sharing this. Keep up the good work and healing, OP! It's incredible that you've continued to be polite and to do as much as you can through your health struggle. Setting and enforcing boundaries can be difficult for some, especially when you're feeling hazy and not operating at 100%. I like that you pointed out being polite can be expensive sometimes.This is excellent advice for anyone with knowledge based work though. Distractions, messages, pop-ups, asks, meetings, etc. are the leading reason I don't get as much done as I could. Some of your items could definitely help here.
• odyssey7
  Oh gosh, even with the laws that should provide cover, the pushback you’ll encounter in academia from so many individuals with limited life experience who are trained only to rigidly follow blanket policies.But if you feel like you won’t speak up because it’s not that bad, remember the next person who will come after you. When you have the capacity to push systems to do better, it’s better for everyone if you exercise it.
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  drtournier
  OP thank you for this generous text. I would add that these tips are amazing for people with post-covid/long-covid/brain-fog too
• emmelaich
  All excellent advice even if you haven't suffered some health issue like stroke.
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  delichon
  I'm terrified by the possibility of a stroke that would disable me, not in a way that would let me write here about my experience with it, but leaving me dependent on the care of others. I'd prefer to shuffle off of this mortal coil, but such a sudden event may not allow that choice. So I fantasize about writing a suicide program that would take care of business if I fail to pass a bespoke Turing (delichon) test. But I doubt my ability to write that with enough nines of reliability to be willing to deploy it. I tried to implant that algorithm into my brother, but he declines to go to prison for me, the jerk. If I live long enough maybe AI tech will become reliable enough for this application, but I doubt it will be soon.
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  GianFabien
  Most of the advice is good for pre-stroke persons too. Might even avoid having one.
• boardwaalk
  How strange to come across someone whose medical stuff so mirrors my own. I was just a decade older and don’t have epilepsy symptoms with meds. I can get behind all the advice here. Running out of “juice” and needing a break is very much thing. Before too but more so now. And taking a lot of semi stream of consciousness notes to help my more limited memory is too.
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  cl3misch
  This advice could be translated 1:1 to ADHD (at least in my experience). You have to be very mindful with your attention and energy levels.I'm wondering if some underlying mechanism in the brain is similar between having ADHD and having suffered a stroke. Or maybe it's just the conscious effort how to handle the symptoms that's similar.
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  mmaaz
  Good advice. I didn’t have a stroke but a couple months ago I developed blindness in my left eye. It came down to my optic nerve being inflamed. I was later diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition called MOGAD which “attacks” the optic nerve. Thankfully my vision is approx 95% recovered by now. But I still can’t read, eg code on my laptop, which is scary (my right eye is basically making up for it). And I’m scared of another attack happening. So I’ve been really looking after my health and trying not to do the 12+ hr coding benders I used to do. I appreciate these tips!
• anonzzzies
  Good advice. I had one young too; I worked long days and had no life outside my company; it was in an economic downturn so I was also burning out (hindsight). I figured out what was important to me and that all changed everything.
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  sarmike31
  This was a very good to-the-point post! Applies to everyone, and you only truly seem to wake up to care for your health when you lost it first.
• sh4rkb0y
  Could honestly change the title to "Tips for stroke-surviving software engineers (or anyone trying to avoid one)". All of us need these fresh little reminders that our brains are very different than the tech we regularly interact with every now and then. Recognize and respect your organic hardware!
• gwbas1c
  I haven't had a stroke, and many of these tips are, IMO, important for the unimpaired productive software developer.
• psnosignaluk
  This is applicable to far more than stroke victims. Any manner of brain interference should have the same ruleset. Reading through the comments, this ruleset should apply to everyone regardless of their medical situation. Chiming in with a +1 to fitness, and diet. It helps, massively.
• symbogra
  This is good advice for non brain damaged engineers too (or maybe I am?)
• davedx
  I don’t know if this is as niche as the author thinks: there’s a lot of great advice for non-stroke survivors in there too.
• gnarcoregrizz
  Good tips. Not a stroke survivor but I developed epilepsy as a young adult… Not sure if work/stress had anything to do with it, but stress certainly triggers it!I’m still able to work as a software engineer, and my career has progressed, but the condition has held me back in a lot of ways.
• jve
  https://stroke.jonasr.app/dates/Quite a recovery. No it's not me, just a dev that works in the same field.
• a5c11
  Didn't have a stroke, but in addition to developing software, I developed "software" brain issues too.
• charles_f
  I haven't had a stroke (yet) but I find all that to be generally good advice. Good read!
• hemmert
  Excellent advice, for everybody. Thank you!
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  hiergiltdiestfu
  Reminds me of Fefe, hope he'll recover one day, too.
• Hannah203
  Good read. Recovery takes time, and steady small steps help rebuild skill and focus.
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  anonym29
  Thank you for sharing.Reading this, I'm reminded of the idea that we should all care about accessibility, because barring death or radical advances in restorative medical technology, we will all rely on accessibility tech in some way eventually.Besides what is listed here, have you observed anything that your coworkers or managers can do to help accommodate you? i.e. Is there a version of this for folks working with stroke-surviving software engineers?
• wonderwonder
  Question to the OP or anyone else that has experienced something similar. Have you tried grey area or Peptide space medications like Dihexa, P-21, Semax, etc to see if there are any benefits there?Very much self experimentation but they do work in mouse models as well as Russian medicine. I'm not encouraging anyone to experiment, just interested to see if anyone that has undergone experiences like OP's has experimented.I have not experienced a stroke or similar but I just started a 6 - 8 week Dihexa course, low dose to test tolerance and I find I am experiencing benefits such as improved recall. I am learning guitar as my test suite. Something I have attempted multiple times before and given up on relatively quickly. 2 weeks in so far.My intention is to drop the Dihexa at week 8 and then switch to Semax. The theory being that Dihexa improves synaptogenesis but inhibits pruning. Semax allows for pruning but optimizes the efficiency of existing used synapses. Dihexa is an experimental Alzheimer's medication and Semax is a Russian post stroke drug
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  throwaway290
  It's very depressing how the article says "you don't have to do it alone! use AI"ah this age where "not alone" means "AI"...How about, enjoy good connections with nice people. Both in personal and work. Maybe those people can even see the warning signs and tell you to stop before you have a stroke.
• NotGMan
  DMSO can allegedly help some people improve after stroke, if applied soon enough.https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/dmso-could-save-millions-...
• foreigner
  > You, too, have a limited context window.Love this!
• hshdhdhehd
  Good ME/CFS engineer advice too. Thanks for writing up OP
• artur_makly
  Stay away from vibe coding. It will cause more stress and provoke aneurysms -;)
• buserror
  Another thing if you are recovering and have limited dexterity in your hands, after trying pretty much ALL the voice recognition I could find, the VScode/copilot assistant is the best by far!I've now recovered enough that I can type/edit faster, but I still use it; I keep a Worksheet.md tab around and keep a whole running log of stuff, LLM prompts etc
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  croes
  > Let it hold state so your brain can judge rather than store and needlessly cogitate on stuff.Isn’t that needless cogitation something that helps creating new links in your brain and helps against cognitive decline in later ages?
• underlipton
  I think AI as it's currently implemented is a plague upon humanity, but I do appreciate it helping me to locate the word that's on the tip of my tongue and which my battered brain can't seem to draw a neural route to, so that I'm not sitting there for 20 minutes trying to fight the Einstellung effect and brain fog.
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  ufko_org
  I would add: 1. Go strictly keto 2. Walk as much as you can
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  lynx97
  I don't get it, why is this mentioning "anti-discrimination legislation". Is being part of a minority prerequisite for personal health care?
• anon
  undefined
• jgant
  [dead]
• radjo
  [flagged]
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  sammy2255
  [flagged]
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  slater
  FYI that article is rendering light-grey text on a cream background color here (Safari, iOS), it’s barely readable
• TechPulse01
  it's very helpful though i did'nt suffered a stroke until now