Hailey Bieber is recovering from a blood clot that moved to her brain, a problem that is commonly seen in “younger and younger people,” according to a vascular neurologist.
On Saturday, the 25-year-old shared that she was eating breakfast with her husband Justin Bieber on Thursday morning and she “started having stroke-like symptoms and was taken to the hospital.”
She said doctors found that she had “suffered a very small blood clot” to her brain, which led to a “small lack of oxygen.” Her body was able to pass the clot on its own, Bieber explained, and she “recovered completely within a few hours.”
Dr. Shazam Hussain of Cleveland Clinic told PEOPLE that blood clots like Bieber’s can form “for different reasons”
He said, “It’s important to know your health and any potential risk factors you might have for strokes, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, difficulty with sugars. When we have younger people having a stroke, we will look for things that would cause their blood to have a tendency to clot — it could be hereditary and run in their families.”
Dr. Hussain said blood clots typically originate from a blocked blood vessel in areas like the neck or the heart, which may move to the brain.
Once the clot is in the brain, “the organ that’s most sensitive to lack of blood flow,” the lack of oxygen will cause the brain function to shut down and cause stroke-like symptoms.
“A stroke is really a situation where every second counts,” Dr. Hussain explained. “The brain is very, very sensitive to the lack of blood flow and you lose somewhere around 2 million brain cells a minute. So it’s really important to get that medical attention right away.”
Bieber had a very small clot so she was able to pass the blood clot on her own. “If it’s a small clot, it can just dissipate and go away on its own and not leave any lasting issues or problems,” Dr. Hussain said.
Bieber typically has a mini-stroke, medically known as a transient ischemic attack (TIA). “That means there was a blood clot, it dissolved up completely and the person is completely a hundred percent back to normal,” Dr. Hussain explained. If an MRI shows any injury to the brain, however, “then it becomes a full stroke.”
He went on to say that people should watch out for such incidents, especially those who are young and old.
“We think of stroke as being something that happens in older ages, but we are seeing it in younger and younger people,” Dr. Hussain said.
“It relates, generally, to people having unhealthy lifestyles, maybe not eating as well or not getting in regular exercise, along with other factors like genetics,” he added. “So it’s important that people don’t just think of it as something that happens to older people. If you’re younger and have those symptoms, you’ve got to get to the hospital.”
