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.
Stroke survivor here checking in.
As I understand it, post-COVID a lot more people are having strokes at younger ages, primarily from PFOs. 10–15% of us are walking around with a small pathway between the atria of our hearts, and if a clot happens to form, it can pop into the other side of your heart and get pumped straight to your brain.
I was exceedingly lucky in that it cleared up on its own after about an hour. I was unable to speak and unable to move so much as a finger or toe on the right half of my body. I was completely incapacitated. They had me in the CT when it cleared up, and I immediately was back to my original self with no lasting defects.
I know a vascular neurologist who says that the average age of his patients has dropped by nearly a decade in the last five years. Many more "young" (<60) men with minor strokes, and more frequent serious strokes in the 40s for both sexes. He's treated as many under 30 y/o stroke patients in the last two years than he did in the first two decades of his career. He's a few years from retirement and basically completely rattled by this sudden shift.
I have an out-there hypothesis I’d want to test. Much of the population has one or more MTHFR mutations, which can increase homocysteine if left untreated and that’s been linked to increased risk in stroke. Treatment includes more B vitamins. I wonder if the declining nutrition in foods and lack of B vitamins has anything to do with this.
i don't know how to word it better than: there's much we don't know yet about the extent of ~"long covid", or "down the road covid outcomes"
> Interesting to see all the people in this thread who had a stroke.
Indeed. My first thought was "....just how common is this?"
Far more common than I thought. My wife had multiple small strokes before she was 40.