Joe Harker
A bloke who thought the smell of bath bombs in Lush was giving him a headache is warning others after it turned out to be something much worse.
Gary Smith was in the cosmetics shop to buy a present for his wife when he started getting a terrible headache, but at first he 'assumed it was the bath bombs'.
He was out shopping with his daughter and tried to push through the pain, even as vision in his left eye became blurry.
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The father and daughter went to a nearby Boots to get the 52-year-old some pain relief, but Gary wasn't able to grab a box of tablets and it was 'like his arm was frozen'.
He remembered feeling 'drunk' and his vision was becoming 'fuzzy' and staff at Boots called him an ambulance, but his daughter wanted to get him to hospital as soon as possible and drove him herself.
Tests at the hospital revealed that Gary had suffered a major stroke, and he was later told that the dangerous experience had 'killed an eighth of his brain'.
Doctors believe the stroke was caused by a blood clot as the result of a genetic heart defect - and not from the bath bombs in Lush - and he's now off work recovering.
The dad also wants others to 'listen to the warning signs of a stroke' so they get help sooner rather than later.
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He said: "When I saw a specialist weeks later he told me I'd had a big stroke and that people who have this usually have permanent paralysis and that was a huge shock.
"I used to race motorbikes and you always have an attitude that it'll never be me and I still had that with a stroke.
"When you're having a stroke you can't stop it and you've got to see what happens but I knew I wasn't right and kept pushing on like an idiot.
"If you get a couple of symptoms then listen to your body and tell someone."
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Gary's brain is now 'rewiring itself to compensate for the area that has died' as his specialist told him he was actually quite lucky after an eighth of his brain had died.
The 52-year-old had struggled with hand-eye coordination at hospital as he struggled to fill out forms and use a key for a locker.
Other than the life-threatening stroke he's pretty healthy as he doesn't smoke or drink heavily and lacks high cholesterol or blood pressure.
The dad has since joked that 'the missus can have a plain bath from now on', though of course their bath bombs actually had nothing to do with his stroke.
Lush wished Gary well with the rest of his recovery.