I Had Health Problems That Caused a Stroke and Didn’t Even Know It

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When I had a stroke last year it was a complete surprise. I hadn’t felt sick. I’d started a new workout regimen and was feeling stronger every week. I ate healthy food and drank plenty of water. I was in my late 50s but didn’t feel old. How did it happen?

Turns out I had a blood clot that traveled to my brain and caused a blockage, and that caused the stroke. The American Heart Association notes that, “Blood clots can travel to the arteries or veins in the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and limbs, which can cause heart attack, stroke, organ damage or even death.”

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. How did I get a blood clot in the first place? Lots of things can increase the risk of a formation of a blood clot: genetics, smoking, obesity, diseases and medical conditions. When you’re in the hospital recovering from a stroke they do a lot of tests to see if you have any of the most obvious risk factors so they can you start you on appropriate medications and make recommendations for follow-ups with health care specialists if needed. Mostly they’re just trying to stabilize you until you can see your own provider.

I didn’t have a primary health care provider. I never thought I needed one. I rarely got sick, and some years I didn’t have health insurance so I wouldn’t have been able to pay one any way. I relied on over-the-counter medications and urgent care clinics for years. A lot of us operate this way. This was a mistake.

A yearly wellness exam is fully covered, without a copay in most cases, by health insurance companies, so if you have insurance, you should be taking full advantage of this benefit. All of my underlying health issues would have been caught during the exam or with blood tests.

I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. All of these can cause blood clots. Now I knew why I had a stroke, but why hadn’t I felt sick or had any symptoms?

According to the Mayo Clinic, there are no symptoms if you have high cholesterol. It’s only found with a blood test. The AHA notes that high blood pressure usually doesn’t have symptoms and is only discovered when you have your blood pressure taken.

When I asked about diabetes, my new health care provider explained that I was still on the low end of type 2. She added that symptoms can manifest so gradually over time that we adjust and don’t really notice. So while I thought that having to get up in the middle of the night, every night, to go to the bathroom was just because I’m getting a little older, that’s actually a symptom. And I thought I was thirstier because I was working out more.

By chance, I’d started to really work on taking better care of my health a couple of months before the stroke, but it wasn’t enough, or a long enough time, to help or reverse the health issues I didn’t know I had. But, it was helpful during post-stroke recovery as I worked through physical therapy and adjusted my diet even more.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from all this is to go beyond just taking care of myself. Annual wellness exams are sometimes the only way to detect health issues that can escalate until you end up in the hospital, or worse. Don’t skip them and don’t ignore small changes in how you feel or how your body works. Catching issues early is important for treatment. Don’t do what I did, which was nothing. Your loved ones will thank you.