Hailey Bieber is sharing the details of her recent health scare and the diagnosis that she received from her doctors.
A little over a month after suffering a blood clot to the brain, the 25-year-old model has bravely opened up about what happened to her as well as the medical findings on her condition.
On Wednesday (April 27), Hailey uploaded a video on YouTube detailing her scary experience. She explained that on March 10 while having breakfast with her husband Justin Bieber, she began to experience what she believed was a stroke. She began to feel a tingling sensation from the shoulder to her fingertips and the right side of her face began drooping, leaving her unable to talk:
“We were in the middle of talking and all of a sudden, I felt this really weird sensation that kind of like, traveled down my arm from my shoulder all the way down to my fingertips, and it made my fingertips feel really numb and weird.”
Justin asked her if she was okay, but she found herself unable to speak when she tried to respond:
“Justin was like, ‘Are you OK?’ And I just didn’t respond because I wasn’t sure and then he asked me again, and when I went to respond, I couldn’t speak.
The right side of my face started drooping. I couldn’t get a sentence out. Everything was coming out — not even jumbled — just like, couldn’t get the words out.”
By that point, the two believed Hailey was having a “full blown stroke.” Justin called for medical attention, and Hailey was taken to the hospital where they ran tests on her, with the doctors discovering that she had not suffered a stroke but rather had a blood clot to her brain categorized as a Transient Ischemic Attack:
“Basically, it’s like having a ministroke. It definitely feels like having a stoke, except my body was able to resolve it pretty quickly and then I didn’t have any more issues for the whole rest of the day and the whole rest of the time that I was in the hospital.”
She was kept in the hospital overnight as a precautionary measure, and she underwent more tests that helped to lead to what may have caused the clot to begin with:
“The conclusion that all of the doctors came to, was three different things: One, was that I had just recently started birth control pills. Which, I should’ve never been on, because I am someone who suffered from migraines anyway, and I had just not talked to my doctor about this. So, ladies, if you suffer from bad migraines and you plan on being on birth control pills, make sure you tell your doctor, because having a stroke is a potential side effect from birth control pills.
The second thing, was I had recently had COVID, and that was something that they thought was a contributing factor, and then the third thing was, I had recently gone on a very long flight. I had flown to Paris and back in a very short amount of time. And I slept through the whole flight both ways, didn’t get up and move around. Never thought about wearing compressions socks.
So, basically, all of the doctors came to the conclusion that it was the perfect storm that led to me having a small blood clot.”
The following day, Hailey went to UCLA Medical Center for more in-depth testing. There, it was revealed that she had a Patent Foramen Ovale which is a hole in the heart that did not close the way it should after birth:
“They listen to the sound of bubbles escaping in the heart. If they don’t hear anything, presumably, you don’t have a PFO. If they hear a little bit, you might have one, but it’s small. And if they hear tons of bubbles escaping, you have one — it’s probably large.
So, I did this test, and they actually found that I have a grade 5 PFO, which is the highest grade that you can have. So, mine was fairly large.”
Hailey went on to say that what ultimately led to her ministroke was her blood clot escaping through this hole in her heart and then making its way somehow to her brain.
She had a PFO closure to close that hole and prevent an incident like what happened to her last month from happening once more:
“So, I recently got the PFO closure done, and it went very smoothly. I’m recovering really well, really fast. I feel great.
This biggest thing I feel, honestly, I just feel really relieved that we were able to figure everything out, that we were able to get it closed. That I will be able to just move on from this really scary situation and just live my life.”
