I survived a stroke when I was 20 – here’s the subtle symptom I ignored

When Esmae Hodgetts was suddenly hit with a pounding headache, the 20-year-old thought nothing of it.

Nor did she think anything sinister was to blame for the slight twinge she felt in her shoulder and neck the week before.

So it was clear that Esmae, who prided herself on being fit and healthy, was disturbed when she discovered the true cause of her pain – a stroke that has turned the dental assistant’s life upside down.

Although considered a condition unique to the older generation, younger people – even hundreds of children each year – are also affected.

Esmae, a dental assistant from Chesterfield, wants other twenty-somethings to realize that they are not immune to stroke just because of their age.

“It can happen to young people,” she told MailOnline.

“They mostly say don’t worry about it until you’re 40 and always say watch out for numbness and a droopy face, but I wasn’t having any of that.

“There was no reason for that to happen, it just did it randomly.

“I was just unlucky.”

Esmae remembers how she suddenly got a ‘thunderclap headache’ at the end of 2022, on New Year’s Eve itself.

It caused her to collapse at home and she had difficulty walking due to dizziness.

Esmae told MailOnline, “It was so intense it felt like a stabbing pain in my head and it radiated down to my neck.”

But Esmae, who went to the emergency room the next day, was completely unaware of the warning signs that had plagued her the days before she collapsed: intense pain in her neck and shoulders.

Although neck pain is usually harmless, it can indicate a tear in one of the arteries that supply the brain.

It can also cause shoulder pain and mimic a migraine, according to one article published in the BMJ.

Known medically as cervical artery dissection, this is one of the leading causes of stroke under the age of 50.

A tear in the lining of the carotid or vertebral arteries — the pair that feed the brain — causes blood to leak between the layers of the artery wall.

This forms a clot, explains Harvard Medical School.

“As a result, the clot can completely block or break off blood flow through the artery and lodge in an artery in the brain,” the health advice page says.

“If either one happens, the result is a stroke.”

Cervical artery dissection is usually caused by high impact injuries such as a car accident. But it can, in exceptionally rare circumstances, also be caused by sneezing, coughing and vomiting.

However, Esmae has no idea what her fault was.

Doctors didn’t realize she had suffered a stroke for almost two days due to the lack of obvious symptoms. Medics herself were baffled as her coordination and speech were completely unaffected.

Even the stroke team was surprised when the MRI results came back revealing she was having a stroke, Esmae said.

She had no serious long-term side effects after the stroke — her vision, coordination, and speech were unaffected.

Esmae only recently stopped taking the blood thinners she was prescribed after her diagnosis, but she still suffers from dizziness and a lingering fear that it could happen again.

“I can’t do what I used to do, I can’t go out and drink with my friends, I can’t eat unhealthy food and I just had to make some changes,” she said.

Although she used to eat healthy, go to the gym and drink only occasionally, she has now decided to become a teetotaler and completely overhaul her diet.

“I eat much healthier, and I don’t drink at all because I don’t even want to risk feeling dizzy and it’s given me some anxiety because now I’m afraid to do anything, there was no reason for it to happen,” said she.