How To Prevent a Stroke..Start Early!

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I am not sure if you play THE “WHAT’S THE DISEASE THAT I DON’T WANT TO HAVE GAME with yourself, but since I am a doctor I have spent a lot of time thinking about what diseases I do not want! I started my list in medical school when I witnessed what certain diseases can do to your life.  Medicine has many cures and treatments, yet some diseases that are treated still can negatively change your life forever.

Even though losing a limb and amputation were at the top of my list there is one disease that tops my list.  Of course, I also have under stroke the usual scary situations like paralysis, or having an incapacitating heart attack that prevents an individual from taking care of himself or herself. However, my most feared diagnosis is having a STROKE!

You may not fully comprehend how a stroke can change your life, but it can affect your speech, your ability to move, to think, to go places, to have a sense of humor, to write and communicate, even to have a sexual relationship with your loved one. A stroke essentially can take away your ability to be the person you have always been, AND it requires that someone must become your caretaker.  That helplessness is something I am most afraid of….We all have our personal fears, but whether you fear having a stroke or not, you should  try your hardest to avoid having one!

DEFINITION: a stoke is a medical emergency that occurs when blood flow to the brain is  blocked or a blood vessel bursts. This can damage or kill parts of the brain, which can lead to long-term disability, brain damage, or even death.  This can cause s a loss of function, physical, mental, and  emotional, and loss of one or more of the senses like sensation, speech, sight, hearing and  taste and smell!

In my practice at BioBalance Health we always work with our patients to prevent them having a stroke and or heart attack. These two conditions are the biggest villains that steal the joy of our “golden years” from us.  From the start of my BioBalance Health practice, I have incorporated  healthy diet training, exercise options and encouragement, how and what to take to supplement my patients’ diet and how to outsmart their genetic makeup so they can be healthier than their parents. All of these lifestyle changes can decrease the risk of stroke and heart attack in a person.

So what is it like to have a stroke?

First let’s go over what symptoms are typical of someone having a stroke.

The symptoms of a stroke are multiple, and a person might not have all of them.

• Weakness on one side of the body
• Facial drooping on one side of the face
• Dizziness
• Numbness
• Loss of balance
• Sudden loss of vision.
• Trouble making sense when speaking
• Trouble talking, reading or understanding
• Sudden nausea and vomiting
• Brief loss of consciousness such as fainting, seizures, confusion, or coma.

When someone has one or more of these symptoms it is an emergency, and you should call 911, then start asking the patient to open their eyes, smile, raise both arms and hold them up. Ask them to talk to see if their speech is impaired. Your findings will be helpful to the EMTs who come to the scene.

An event is called a stroke, when there is a deficit in physical or mental function and that deficit continues and doesn’t go away.  If it the symptoms completely resolve, it is called a TIA- a transient Ischemic attack. It is a warning to see a doctor and make sure you don’t have a stroke in the future and it is a wakeup call to stop all poor lifestyle choices.

 

PREVENTING A STROKE:

This last month, the American Heart and Stroke prevention Association released new Guidelines on how to prevent a stroke.

 I think talking about the risk factors for stroke and discussing how to prevent having one, is worthy of discussion. Recently the medical guidelines for stroke prevention have been revised, and even though I think a few more things should have been included, the fact that they made the first change in the guidelines in 10 years is a first step. Here is what they advise all people who are aging should do.

 

#1 See your internal medicine or Family physician regularly, at least yearly

#2. Stop sedentary behavior—walk/exercise/ do Yoga, just get out of the chair for the majority of your day!

#3. If you are diabetic, they advocate going on Ozempic/Mounjaro to lose weight—that will lower your risk of a stroke, and heart attack..

#4 If you are hypertensive, take your BP medicine every day

#5 Follow these lifestyle changes called Life’s Essential 8: Your behavior and lifestyle put you at risk for having a stroke:

 

 Healthy diet, low carb Mediterranean diet, no junk food!

 Physical activity every day

 Achieve a healthy weight,

 Make sure your sleep is restful

 Stop use of tobacco products, No smoking or vaping

 Achieve healthy levels of blood glucose, and blood pressure.

 Don’t drink more than one 4 oz glass of wine a day

 I add these recommendations to theirs for the care of my patients:

 

• Drink ½ your weight in water every day
• Wat at least half your weight in grams of protein a day
• Get a Cardiac calcium scan to see if you have arterial plaque. If you do have plaque (arteriosclerosis) then you are at risk for stroke as well. See a cardiologist to be treated preventatively and tested.
• Option other than a cardiac calcium scan, get a carotid ultrasound to make sure you don’t have plaque in the neck vessels that lead to your brain..
• Make sure your Homocysteine level is normal (<8.0) by taking Methyl B12 and Methyl folate to lower your risk of embolic stroke.
• Take vitamin D3 and K2 to lower your risk of stroke.
• Women should take non-oral estrogen after menopause
• Take Testosterone pellets to decrease your risk of stroke caused by loss of elasticity of the vessels.
• Take Arteriosil® or Neo 40 every day to improve the nitric oxide in your arteries so they dilate, like when you were younger.
• Make sure you take electrolytes when you are sweating or working outside in the heat. Every third bottle of water should have NUUN sport or another electrolyte additive to prevent dehydration which raises pulse and lowers blood pressure (in a bad way) causing you to faint or have a stroke.
• Lower your cholesterol by treating a low thyroid, and or limiting your intake of carbohydrates (food from animals is ok, so are eggs and milk products)
• Decrease inflammation (which damages your blood vessels) by losing weight, exercise, supplements that lower inflammation.

If you have done all of these things then monitoring your arteries with yearly cardiac calcium CT scans and blood work is a good way to see your improvement!