TO Colorado A martial artist suffered a terrifying stroke during Brazilian jiu-jitsu practice, highlighting a mysterious rise in this devastating medical event in young, healthy Americans.
In January, 32-year-old Jo Beckwith was training for a competition. She worked out every day and was in top physical condition.
Then one day, while training, something happened that put his life at stake.
“After a minute, all of a sudden, I felt like I had been hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Day and night, I was on the ground,” the influencer said.
“The word vertigo doesn’t seem to sum up how dizzy I was, how completely unable I was to open my eyes, to lift my head. I couldn’t even articulate words. My whole body was shaking and I couldn’t stop it.
“Nobody had any idea what was going on. It was terrible and really scary,” he added.
Jo Beckwith, 32, was training for a Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition when she “felt like she had been hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat.” She had suffered a stroke.
Beckwith is one of nearly 800,000 Americans who suffer a stroke each year. Hers occurred near the cerebellum and occipital lobe, which control coordination, motor function and vision.
It was more than an hour before Mrs. Beckwith could sit up and utter a few words, and after being driven home, she stumbled before she got through the front door.
“I was fine, but I also wasn’t thinking clearly,” he said.
Ms. Beckwith didn’t realize she was having a stroke. She thought she had taken her practice too far and needed to rest.
And like many young people who suffer a stroke, he decided not to go to the hospital.
For two days he suffered from severe headaches and neck pain and difficulty moving his hands.
But she is lucky to be alive today: every minute a stroke goes untreated, nearly 2 million brain cells die, leading to irreversible brain damage and death.
Ms. Beckwith is one of 800,000 Americans who suffer a stroke each year, or one person every 40 seconds, according to the CDC.
The leading cause of death is rising among young people and experts are racing to find the cause.
Some officials have suggested the increase could be due to rising obesity, high blood pressure and drug addiction, which increase the risk of stroke.
And others believe that young people are more prone to stress, which makes them more vulnerable.
After two days of debilitating pain, Ms. Beckwith went to hospital, where tests revealed a tear in her vertebral artery, one of the main blood suppliers to the brain and spine.
This caused blood flow from that artery to the back of the brain to become blocked, leading to a stroke in the cerebellum and occipital lobe. As cells in these areas died, Beckwith found himself unable to walk, talk or even hold a pencil.
Doctors believe that at some point during his training session, an impact to his neck caused the artery to tear and he suffered a stroke.
“Everything accelerated very quickly,” Beckwith said in a video on his Youtube Channel.
The CDC report found that strokes increased in people ages 18 to 64 by about 15 percent when comparing stroke cases from 2011 to 2013 with stroke cases from 2020 to 2022.
Following his injury, Beckwith had to give up jiu-jitsu altogether. “It was a big part of my identity,” he said.
She spent several days in the intensive care unit before being discharged.
“For the next three months I was told not to do anything,” he said.
Beckwith, who was once a fitness buff and competed in intense sports such as jiu-jitsu, was only allowed to go for short walks under supervision and not lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. Even her 90-pound dog Leo had to stay elsewhere for two months.
Ms Beckwith, who had her foot amputated five years earlier, was reliving a family trauma, bedridden and unable to find solace in her hobbies.
It is unclear whether Ms Beckwith’s leg amputation had anything to do with her stroke, but experts believe it could increase her risk of heart problems such as stroke and heart failure.
TO higher education A study in South Korea, for example, found that patients who had undergone amputations had a higher risk of atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm) and heart attack.
This could be because amputation increases resting heart rate and blood pressure and can narrow blood vessels.
“I had to constantly remind myself that everything is temporary. Being stuck at home without all the tools I normally use to get through situations was really hard,” Beckwith said.
“But I tried to get better. I would say it probably took me at least three months before I could say, ‘I think I feel like a person.'”
A recent CDC report found that strokes in patients under age 45 have increased by nearly 15 percent, along with a 16 percent increase in patients ages 45 to 64.
The report also found that people who did not graduate from high school had the largest increase in stroke cases, rising 18.2 percent.
While the risk of a person under 45 suffering a stroke is still low, several lifestyle factors may increase the odds.
For example, a small study in the Journal of Applied Psychology Vaping was suggested to cause problems regulating blood flow to the brain, although the mechanism was unclear.
Having a stroke also makes patients more vulnerable to having another one.
In May, just as Beckwith was starting to get back to normal, she woke up with a strange feeling in the middle of the night: “All of a sudden, that same feeling I had when I had the stroke started coming out of nowhere, like 0 to 60.”
Ms Beckwith struggled to maintain her balance and could barely speak, losing control of half her body.
She thought her worst nightmare was coming true: that she was having another stroke.
Ms. Beckwith is now focusing on recovery and finding other ways to stay active, such as dance.
But doctors believe Beckwith had a hemiplegic migraine, a rare type of migraine that occurs in one in 100 patients and mimics the symptoms of a stroke, such as weakness and difficulty speaking.
She is now slowly getting back into shape, although she has been forced to give up jiu-jitsu to reduce the risk of another stroke.
“I’m much better. I’m not back to 100 percent, I didn’t expect to be, and I have no idea when or if that will happen,” he said.
“I don’t think I’m ready to accept… how this has altered my life, my daily experience and my health.”
She added: “If I have any interest in staying alive, I won’t be able to do jiu-jitsu again. It was such a big part of my identity… I’ve never found a sport that made me feel so free, especially after losing my leg. That’s the only place in the whole world where I don’t feel disabled.”
However, Beckwith is now trying to find other, less intense sports, such as dancing, to stay active while she recovers.
“While I mourn the losses, it’s also great to discover new things,” he said.