Hailey Bieber took to social media on Wednesday (April 27) and revealed the details of her hospitalization in March.
In a video shared on her YouTube and Instagram page, the 25-year-old model, who is married to Pop superstar Justin Bieber, shared that a blood clot that traveled from a hole in her heart to her brain caused her to have a mini-stroke.
Hailey said she was sitting at the table having breakfast with her husband on March 5, and all of a sudden she felt a weird sensation that traveled from her shoulder to her fingertips.
Her fingertips felt numb and weird and she was trying to figure out what was happening.
Justin asked if she was okay, and when she tried to respond she couldn’t speak.
The right side of her face started drooping, and she thought she was having a stroke.
A medic that happened to be nearby rushed over and started running tests on her, and her anxiety started to build.
Hailey Bieber said the facial drooping subsided within approximately 30 seconds, but she still couldn’t speak.
By the time the ambulance arrived her speech began to come back a little.
When she got to the ER she was back to normal, and she could talk again.
They did the stroke checklist and she scored a 0.
She wasn’t having any symptoms anymore.
They did some scans and determined that she had suffered a small blood clot in her brain that the doctors characterized as a TIA ( Transient Ischemic Attack).
She said a TIA is similar to having a mini-stroke.
Hailey’s body was able to resolve the TIA, and she didn’t have any more issues during her hospital stay.
Her scans revealed she had a lack of oxygen to a certain part of her brain for a certain amount of time.
They kept her overnight and did numerous tests, but they didn’t find anything.
They concluded that there were three factors that caused her to have the blood clot:
- She had just recently started birth control pills, and she suffers from migraines but she didn’t tell her doctor.
- She had recently had COVID.
- She had recently taken a long flight to Paris and back in a short amount of time, and she slept the whole time.
She was discharged the next day.
She then went to UCLA to get a second opinion, and they ran some tests and discovered that she had a grade 5 PFO.
A PFO is defined as a patent oval foramen, and it is a small opening between the two upper chambers of the heart, the right, and the left atrium.
Typically, the heart would filter a small blood clot to the lungs, and the lungs would absorb it.
In Hailey’s situation, the blood clot escaped through the PFO or the hole in her heart and traveled to her brain.
The doctors at UCLA recommended she have a PFO closure procedure which she did and everything went well.
The PFO closure procedure consists of going through a vein in your groin and putting a closure device over the PFO, and eventually, your heart tissue grows over the closure device and seals it for the rest of your life.
Hailey said since she had the TIA she’s been on a blood thinner and aspirin every day.
She closed the video by thanking the doctors at Eisenhower Medical Center and the doctors at UCLA who took care of her.
Hailey Bieber is very grateful that she doesn’t have any lasting effects.
Watch the video below:
Thank you very much for sharing your story Hailey Bieber.
