Healthy 20-Year-Old Woman Had No Idea She Was Having A Stroke

Jul 16, 2019

We usually think that a person must be in their elderly years to have a stroke. But for Sarah Porter, this wasn’t true at all. She was just 20-years-old when she had her very first stroke.

She told the Daily Mail that she was sitting in her college math class when she started to feel tired and foggy. She ignored her symptoms at first. However, a classmate became concerned. '"The girl sat next to me was like, "are you ok? I think you just had a seizure, your face was twitching and you passed out,'" Porter said. But she didn't believe her classmate and asserted that she was okay. 

While Porter made it to the end of the class, her right arm felt tingly and she couldn’t make her right leg work properly. Over time she noticed other symptoms like facial drooping and dizziness. She became concerned and called her parents who happened to be medical professionals, "Instantly when I told them my symptoms they said 'you need to go to the ER immediately,'" Porter said during an interview on The Doctors. Her brother thankfully lived nearby and took her to the hospital. 

When she got to the hospital, a nurse suggested that she was faking her symptoms. She said that no one her age could possibly be having a stroke. They even suggested that she was simply trying to get out of her final exams. "'The crazy thing is, I probably would have listened to her if my brother wasn't there kicking up a fuss. I had no idea what was happening to me, and to be honest I didn't think I could have a stroke that young either," Porter said to the Daily Mail. 

Thankfully Sarah was examined properly where they found she had a malformation called Cavernoma which is a tangle of blood vessels in her brain according to a report from Inside Edition. Unfortunately, Sarah suffered another stroke four years later when she was 24 years old.  Porter said to Inside Edition, "I walked into the ER I said 'Hi my name is Sarah Porter, I had a stroke four years ago and I'm having another one right now."  She is now 26-years-old and has fortunately been able to make full recoveries from both of her strokes. 

According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) "stroke risk increases with age, but strokes can—and do—occur at any age." The Journal of the American Heart Association also found in a study that while hospitalizations for strokes have reduced overall there was a sharp nearly 44% increase for people ages 25-44 between 2000 -2010. 

The National Stroke Association created the acronym F.A.S.T. that can help people remember symptoms of a stroke: 

"F-FACE: Ask the person to smile. Does one side of the face droop?, A-ARMS: Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?, S-SPEECH: Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase. Is their speech slurred or strange?, T-TIME: If you observe any of these signs, call 9-1-1 immediately."

What do you think about this? Do you know anyone who suffered from a stroke at an early age? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this article along – it might save a life!

Our content is created to the best of our knowledge, yet it is of general nature and cannot in any way substitute an individual consultation by your doctor. Your health is important to us!