Health
Michigan mom: ‘I had a stroke at 39 — and the warning signs weren’t what you’d expect’
Jenna Gibson was just 39 when she was training for a marathon five years ago — but her plans were cut short by a stroke that almost took her life.
Nearly 60% of stroke deaths occur in women, according to a recent study by Mayo Clinic — and now Gibson, a Michigan mother of two, aims to help others to be more aware and prioritize their health.
“Once I learned that strokes are happening to younger people, I had to share my story,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“In most cases, strokes are preventable if you know what to look for.”
On the day of Gibson’s stroke, she was feeling great.
Jenna Gibson was just 39 years old when she was training for a marathon five years ago — but her plans were cut short by a stroke that nearly took her life. (Jenna Gibson)
It was a beautiful day, she’d nailed a presentation at work, and she was enjoying a walk outside with her mother after dinner.
“We were talking about how I was training for the Detroit marathon for my 40th birthday, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, it felt like I was hit with a ton of bricks,” she told Fox News Digital.
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Gibson stopped walking, then suddenly fell over into the grass.
Her mother thought she was joking at first. “She actually took a picture of me lying in the grass, saying, ‘C’mon, get up, what are you doing?’”
“They could see there was a blockage on the left side of my brain, and I was actively having a stroke.”
Her mother helped her up, but Gibson couldn’t walk straight.
“I felt like I was drunk — something just wasn’t right,” she said.
Even so, Gibson did not experience any of the textbook symptoms of a stroke, such as the facial droop, severe headache or vision disturbances.
When Gibson first fell onto the grass, her mother thought she was joking — and snapped this picture. As it turned out, Gibson was in the early stages of having a stroke. (Jenna Gibson)
They made it back home, where Gibson assumed she was having a migraine. She took some headache medicine and went to bed.
“A couple of hours later, I woke up and still didn’t feel right — I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t move,” she recalled.
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That’s when they headed to the emergency room. Gibson’s mother told the medical team that her daughter was having trouble walking and might be having a stroke.
“They checked me over, did all the tests, and didn’t see the typical signs that they would be looking for,” Gibson said. “Part of it was because I was young.”
“I could walk, although not very well. I could get some words out.”
She added, “I didn’t have the facial droop. I could walk, although not very well. I could get some words out.”
After a CT scan, the medical team decided that Gibson was likely having an optic migraine. The next morning, when she still wasn’t feeling right, the neurologist ordered another scan with contrast — and that time, the stroke finally showed up.
Gibson is pictured with her husband and two daughters, who were ages 8 and 4 at the time of her stroke in 2019. (Jenna Gibson)
“They could see that there was a blockage on the left side of my brain, and I was actively having a stroke,” she said.
Gibson was immediately airlifted to another hospital, where she had emergency brain surgery to remove the blood clot.
“There was obviously a risk of death — if we didn’t move fast enough, the time frame would be over,” she said.
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As she was flown to the hospital, Gibson said she felt certain she was going to die and would never again see her husband or her daughters, who were just 8 and 4 at the time.
“I thought I’d never get to see my children grow up and get married, or that I’d have to live in some kind of vegetative state and would never work again.”
Gibson is pictured with her two daughters in the hospital after her stroke. Her first “assignment” was to tell her daughters that she loved them — and that “Mommy’s going to be OK.” (Jenna Gibson)
“I was thinking, ‘Did I tell my girls enough times that Mommy loves them? Does my husband know how proud I am of him?’”
The next thing she knew, Gibson was waking up from surgery in the ICU — and facing a long road to recovery.
“At first, I couldn’t speak at all. I couldn’t move my right side. I was trapped in my head — I could see what was happening and hear people asking me questions, but I couldn’t answer.”
‘By the grace of God’
Over the next few days, Gibson said her capabilities slowly started coming back.
She received speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy — and over time began to regain movement on her right side.
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Her first “assignment” was to tell her daughters that she loved them and that “Mommy’s going to be OK.”
After a couple of weeks, Gibson returned home and continued with outpatient therapy for three hours a day, three days a week for a four-month period.
“It was during the first six weeks that we saw the quickest improvement, and then after that, it was slower and slower,” she said.
“I had to relearn everything. And now, by the grace of God, I can do all the things.”
“I was thinking, ‘Did I tell my girls enough times that Mommy loves them? Does my husband know how proud I am of him?’” Gibson said about her stroke. She is pictured here with her husband and two daughters. (Jenna Gibson)
Today, Gibson is still completely numb on the entire right side of her body. She also still sometimes struggles with finding the right words while speaking, she said, especially when she’s tired or stressed.
“But if you saw me, I look like a normal person,” she said.
And in a full-circle moment, Gibson was finally able to complete the half-marathon last October.
‘Every second counts’
Dr. Annie Tsui, chief of neurology at Access TeleCare, who is based in Texas, emphasized the prevalence of strokes among women and urged awareness.
“Strokes can occur for various reasons across different age groups and genders,” Tsui, who was not involved in Gibson’s care, told Fox News Digital. “Even though strokes can occur at any age, women between the ages of 20 and 39 are at twice the risk compared to men.”
While the primary risk factors for stroke are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity and diabetes, the causes for strokes in younger age groups differ from those typically associated with older people, Tsui noted.
After her stroke was diagnosed, Gibson was airlifted to another hospital to get emergency brain surgery. (Jenna Gibson)
Those may include cardiac issues, blood clotting disorders, genetic predispositions, vascular abnormalities or trauma.
“Although no one is completely immune to the risk of stroke, individuals at higher risk should work with their doctor to develop a prevention plan,” Tsui advised. “In general, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is crucial, as up to 80% of strokes can be prevented.”
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It’s crucial to be aware of the symptoms to receive treatment as quickly as possible, according to Tsui.
She recommends using the FAST acronym, shown below, as a convenient tool for identifying stroke indicators.
- Face (drooping or numbness)
- Arm (weakness or numbness)
- Speech (slurring or difficulty speaking)
- T for time to call 911
Gibson underwent four months of intensive physical and occupational therapy during her recovery. (Jenna Gibson)
“The chances of survival and positive outcomes are highest when the patient receives prompt medical attention,” Tsui told Fox News Digital.
Some stroke treatments are only effective if administered within three hours of when symptoms begin, she warned — with the risk of permanent brain damage or death rising with each passing minute.
“It’s important to be vigilant in recognizing stroke symptoms and to seek medical assistance immediately at the first sign,” Tsui said.
“Every second counts in reducing the risk of brain injury, permanent disability or even death.”
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Long before the Black Death killed millions across Europe in the Middle Ages, an earlier, more elusive version of the plague spread across much of Eurasia.
For years, scientists were unsure how the ancient disease managed to spread so widely during the Bronze Age, which lasted from roughly 3300 to 1200 B.C., and stick around for nearly 2,000 years, especially since it wasn’t spread by fleas like later plagues. Now, researchers say a surprising clue may help explain it, a domesticated sheep that lived more than 4,000 years ago.
Researchers found DNA from the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis in the tooth of a Bronze Age sheep discovered in what is now southern Russia, according to a study recently published in the journal Cell. It is the first known evidence that the ancient plague infected animals, not just people, and offers a missing clue about how the disease spread.
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“It was alarm bells for my team,” study co-author Taylor Hermes, a University of Arkansas archaeologist who studies ancient livestock and disease spread, said in a statement. “This was the first time we had recovered the genome from Yersinia pestis in a non-human sample.”
A domesticated sheep, likely similar to this one, lived alongside humans during the Bronze Age. (iStock)
And it was a lucky discovery, according to the researchers.
“When we test livestock DNA in ancient samples, we get a complex genetic soup of contamination,” Hermes said. “This is a large barrier … but it also gives us an opportunity to look for pathogens that infected herds and their handlers.”
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The highly technical and time-consuming work requires researchers to separate tiny, damaged fragments of ancient DNA from contamination left by soil, microbes and even modern humans. The DNA they recover from ancient animals is often broken into tiny pieces sometimes just 50 “letters” long, compared to a full human DNA strand, which contains more than 3 billion of those letters.
Animal remains are especially tough to study because they are often poorly preserved compared to human remains that were carefully buried, the researchers noted.
The finding sheds light on how the plague likely spread through close contact between people, livestock and wild animals as Bronze Age societies began keeping larger herds and traveling farther with horses. The Bronze Age saw more widespread use of bronze tools, large-scale animal herding and increased travel, conditions that may have made it easier for diseases to move between animals and humans.
When the plague returned in the Middle Ages during the 1300s, known as the Black Death, it killed an estimated one-third of Europe’s population.
The discovery was made at Arkaim, a fortified Bronze Age settlement in the Southern Ural Mountains of present-day Russia near the Kazakhstan border. (iStock)
“It had to be more than people moving,” Hermes said. “Our plague sheep gave us a breakthrough. We now see it as a dynamic between people, livestock and some still unidentified ‘natural reservoir’ for it.”
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Researchers believe sheep likely picked up the bacteria from another animal, like rodents or migratory birds, that carried it without getting sick and then passed it to humans. They say the findings highlight how many deadly diseases begin in animals and jump to humans, a risk that continues today as people move into new environments and interact more closely with wildlife and livestock.
“It’s important to have a greater respect for the forces of nature,” Hermes said.
The study is based on a single ancient sheep genome, which limits how much scientists can conclude, they noted, and more samples are needed to fully understand the spread.
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The researchers plan to study more ancient human and animal remains from the region to determine how widespread the plague was and which species may have played a role in spreading it.
Researchers (not pictured) found plague-causing Yersinia pestis DNA in the remains of a Bronze Age sheep. (iStock)
They also hope to identify the wild animal that originally carried the bacteria and better understand how human movement and livestock herding helped the disease travel across vast distances, insights that could help them better anticipate how animal-borne diseases continue to emerge.
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The research was led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, with senior authors Felix M. Key of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology and Christina Warinner of Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology.
The research was supported by the Max Planck Society, which has also funded follow-up work in the region.
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Cases of gout are rising in younger individuals, according to a global study.
The condition, which is a type of inflammatory arthritis, steadily increased in people aged 15 to 39 between 1990 and 2021, researchers in China announced.
Although rates vary widely between countries, the total number of young people with the condition is expected to continue rising through 2035.
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The study, published in the journal Joint Bone Spine, investigated 2021 data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), spanning 204 countries within the 30-year timeframe.
The data measured gout prevalence, incidence and years lived with disability, tracking global trends over time. The results showed a global increase across all three outcomes.
Gout is expected to continue rising in young people through 2035. (iStock)
Prevalence and disability years increased by 66%, and incidence rose by 62%. In 2021, 15- to 39-year-olds accounted for nearly 14% of new gout cases globally, the study found.
Men from 35 to 39 years old and people in high-income regions had the highest burden, but high-income North America topped the list for highest rates.
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Men were also found to have lived more years with gout due to high BMI, while women tended to have the condition as a link to kidney dysfunction, the study noted.
The total number of cases is expected to increase globally due to population growth, but the study projected that rates per population would decrease.
The researchers noted that data quality, especially in low-income settings, could have posed a limitation to the broad GBD data.
What is gout?
Gout is a common form of arthritis involving sudden and severe attacks of pain, swelling, redness and tenderness in the joints, according to Mayo Clinic. It most often occurs in the big toe.
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The condition occurs when urate crystals accumulate in the joint. These form when there are high levels of uric acid in the blood, which the body produces when it breaks down a natural substance called purines.
A gout flare-up can happen at any time, often at night, causing the affected joint to feel hot, swollen, tender and sensitive to the touch.
Urate crystals, described as sharp and needle-like, build up in the joint, causing intense pain and swelling. (iStock)
Purines can also be found in certain foods, like red meat or organ meats like liver and some seafood, including anchovies, sardines, mussels, scallops, trout and tuna, according to the Mayo Clinic. Alcoholic drinks, especially beer, and drinks sweetened with fruit sugar can also lead to higher uric acid levels.
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Uric acid will typically dissolve in the blood and pass through the kidneys into urine, but when the body produces too much or too little uric acid, it can cause a build-up of urate crystals. These are described by the Mayo Clinic as sharp and needle-like, causing pain, inflammation and swelling in the joint or surrounding tissue.
Risk factors for gout include a diet rich in high-purine foods and being overweight, which causes the body to produce more uric acid and the kidneys to have trouble eliminating it.
Experts urge patients to seek medical attention for gout flare-ups. (iStock)
Certain conditions like untreated high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome and heart and kidney diseases can increase the risk of gout, as well as certain medications.
A family history of gout can also increase risk. Men are more likely to develop the condition, as women tend to have lower uric acid levels, although symptoms generally develop after menopause.
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Untreated gout can cause worsening pain and joint damage, experts caution. It may also lead to more severe conditions, such as recurrent gout, advanced gout and kidney stones.
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The Mayo Clinic advises patients to seek immediate medical care if a fever occurs or if a joint becomes hot and inflamed, which is a sign of infection. Certain anti-inflammatory medications can help treat gout flares and complications.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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