Dame Prue Leith has spoken out after being rushed to hospital over a suspected stroke. The former Great British Bake Off star, 86, was left temporarily unable to speak during the ordeal, which led her husband John Playfair to believe she was having a stroke. It later emerged that Dame Prue had suffered a migraine attack, during which her vision significantly deteriorated.
Migraine attack mistaken for stroke
She had recognised the symptoms of a migraine and informed her husband, but he remained deeply concerned and called for an ambulance. The TV star was taken to Harrogate Hospital, where she received treatment in the Accident and Emergency department.
Dame Prue has now taken to Instagram and said: "For those that have messaged me, I wrote a piece for @theoldiemagazine about my trip to the hospital a couple of months ago. I was fine shortly after, and I am very much alive and kicking now!"
Prue's account of the ordeal
In her column, she wrote: "A few weeks ago, staying in Yorkshire, I had a migraine attack. It followed a familiar path. First, I can see only half of whatever I'm looking at. This is speedily followed by a bright circle of flickering, coloured lights in the upper right field of vision. I don't swiftly swallow one of my migraine 'bombs' (three pills: paracetamol, ibuprofen and sumatriptan), a crashing headache will follow."
She added: "This time, my incomprehensible jumble of disconnected words convinced John I was having a stroke. I tried to tell him it was just a migraine, but I couldn't string two words together."
Hospital visit and recovery
Prue then revealed that despite being able to raise her right arm and showing no facial drooping - both key indicators of a stroke - the operator John spoke to decided to dispatch an ambulance, and she shortly found herself at Harrogate Hospital. The star experienced a six-hour wait in A&E, and after eventually undergoing a CT scan at midnight, she was discharged at two o'clock in the morning.
She rounded off her column by noting that while she "knew all along" that she was experiencing a migraine, given that loss of speech is a significant symptom of a stroke, it was better "safe than sorry" on this occasion. Prue, who served as a judge on Bake Off for nearly a decade before announcing her exit earlier this year, recalled suffering her very first migraine at just nine years old. She recounted that, at the time, her speech went "bananas" and she suddenly blurted out: "I want fish!"
