When Sarah Miles, a 33-year-old mother, woke up in the early hours of the morning with a splitting headache, her instincts told her something was seriously wrong.
The previously healthy Victorian lost her peripheral vision and later that day, after visits to both her GP and optometrist, the shocking diagnosis was revealed that Sarah had suffered a stroke.
“I didn’t know much about stroke, all I knew was that it only happened to older people. All the worst-case scenarios were running through my head. ‘Children. I thought, “I can’t leave them behind, they’re still young.”
Headache turned out to be a stroke
The mother of four told Yahoo that she thought her eyes were tired at first. Even after she Googled the symptoms, she said she wasn’t convinced she was having a stroke.
“My husband and I Googled it and it said it was a stroke, but we laughed it off. ‘Don’t be so stupid as to believe Dr. Google,'” she said.
After a visit to an optometrist in July 2020, a visual field test revealed that Sarah may have suffered a stroke. Sarah burst into tears as she heard the shocking news.
She was urged to go to hospital, where a CT scan confirmed she had suffered a stroke. “Luckily it was caught early,” she told Yahoo.
What causes a stroke?
A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is cut off or there is sudden bleeding within the brain. Sarah’s stroke was caused by a blood clot and is therefore known as an ischemic stroke.
The mother was treated with blood thinners and spent four nights in hospital trying to find the cause of the blood clot in the back of her neck.
“Even after I was discharged from the hospital, the blood clot was still there so I had to take blood thinners until it dissolved,” she said.
Her mother says it took her more than a year to recover. “I didn’t understand what happened for a while,” she said.
Now 37, Sarah has permanent blind spots in her vision and suffers from cognitive fatigue. She’s just grateful she was able to maintain her independence, she says.
Reading stories about other young stroke survivors inspired her to share her own. “I didn’t have the usual symptoms of a stroke,” she explains.
The three traditional signs of stroke include facial weakness, arm weakness, and speech problems. “I didn’t have any of that,” Sarah says.
Breakthroughs in treatment
Stroke is one of the five leading causes of death in Australia, claiming 23 lives every day. Nearly 55,000 Australians suffer a stroke each year, often without warning, and this can occur at any age.
About 85 percent of strokes are caused by the formation of harmful blood clots in the brain, also known as acute ischemic strokes. It is a leading cause of disability and costs Australia an estimated $7.74 billion annually.
A three-year, world-first study by the Heart Institute (HRI) recently found that commonly consumed vegetables can help prevent and treat blood clots that cause strokes.Molecules found in broccoli may triple the effectiveness of blood clot-busting drugs given to stroke patients and also reduce the chance of a stroke occurring.
Lead researcher Dr. Liu said this breakthrough paves the way for the development of new life-saving drugs.
“Broccoli compounds may not only be effective in improving the effectiveness of clot-busting drugs after stroke, but also have the potential to be used as a prophylactic agent in patients at high risk of stroke,” Dr. Liu said. .
