Hailey Bieber on Friday marked a year since she suffered a mini-stroke that led to her diagnosis of a patent foramen ovale (PFO), meaning she had a hole in her heart.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year since I had a mini stroke that led to my PFO diagnosis,” Bieber shared on her Instagram story. “As it marks the one-year mark of such a life-changing event, I wanted to share all the information I’ve learned about PFO and share resources on how to donate.”
The model and Justin Bieber’s wife shared that PFO is the most common type of congenital heart defect, affecting 20% of people, “with 60% occurring in first-degree relatives,” citing information from UCLA Health, where she went after her mini stroke.
She added that “60% of people who have a stroke with no known cause are likely to have PFO.”
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Hailey Bieber said she suffered a mini-stroke while having breakfast with her husband last year. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
“PFO is a passageway between the left and right atria of the heart. It exists in everyone before birth, but in most people it closes after birth, but in about one in four people it doesn’t close,” she shared on another slide on her Instagram story.
In April, the 26-year-old posted a YouTube video describing what she experienced when she had the mini-stroke on March 10, 2022.
She said she was having a normal morning eating breakfast with her husband when “and all of a sudden I felt this really weird feeling that was kind of traveling down my arm from my shoulder down to my fingertips and it made my fingertips feel really numb and.” weird.”
Hailey Bieber said she was relieved to be able to move on with her life after a hole in her heart was closed last year. (John Scherer/Getty Images)
She said that after her husband asked her if she was okay, she realized she couldn’t speak and the right side of her face began to droop.
Bieber said she was really “scared” and sat there thinking she’d suffered a “full-blown” stroke when a doctor who happened to be at the restaurant started asking her questions like, “Do you know who you are ?” She said she knew the answers but couldn’t speak them.
Her symptoms were normal when she got to hospital, but scans showed she had suffered a blood clot in her brain called a transient ischemic attack (TIA), commonly known as a mini-stroke.
Doctors finally discovered her PFO after doing a bladder echo.
According to her doctors, Beiber said the combination of her starting birth control pills, COVID-19, and being stuck on a flight from Paris contributed to a “perfect storm” that led to her mini-stroke.
She said doctors discovered she had a “fairly large” PFO, measuring between 12 and 13 centimeters, the “maximum” grade possible.
Hailey Bieber and Justin Bieber leave a restaurant in Paris on June 21, 2021. (Pierre Suu/GC images)
“The conclusion was that I had a blood clot that went into my heart. And instead of what usually happens when you have a small blood clot, the heart will filter the clot into your lungs. And your lungs will absorb the blood clot because the lungs are so big and they can handle that,” she explained. “What happened to me is that my blood clot actually escaped through the valve or the hole in my heart and into it my brain wandered and that’s why I suffered a TIA.”
Bieber soon had a “PFO closure” procedure performed. A button-like object was placed over the hole in the heart and “eventually your heart tissue grows back over the closure device.”
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The procedure “went smoothly” and she was prescribed a blood thinner, Bieber said, adding that most of all she was “relieved” to be able to get on with her life as normal.