A Colorado martial artist suffered a terrifying stroke during Brazilian jiu-jitsu practice, highlighting a mysterious rise of the devastating medical event in young, healthy Americans.
In January, Jo Beckwith, 32, was training for a competition. She exercised every day and was in peak physical condition.
Then one day while sparring, something happened that put her life in the balance.
‘About a minute in, out of nowhere, I felt like a baseball bat had been cracked against the back of my skull. Night and day, I was on the ground,’ the influencer said.
‘The word “vertigo” doesn’t seem to encapsulate how dizzy I was, how completely incapable of even opening my eyes, even lifting my head up. I couldn’t even put words together. My whole body was shaking, and I couldn’t stop it.
‘No one had any idea what was happening. It was bad, and it was really scary,’ she added.
Jo Beckwith, 32, was training for a Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition when she ‘felt like a baseball bat had been cracked against the back of my skull.’ She had suffered a stroke
Ms Beckwith is one of the nearly 800,000 Americans who suffer a stroke every year. Her stroke occurred near her cerebellum and occipital lobe, which control coordination, motor function, and vision
It would be more than an hour before Ms Beckwith could sit up and utter a few words, and after she was driven home, she tripped before making it through her front door.
‘I was good, and I also was just not thinking straight,’ she said.
Ms Beckwith did not realize she was experiencing a stroke. She thought she had just taken her practice too far and needed to rest.
And like many young people who suffer a stroke, she chose not to go to the hospital.
For two days, she suffered severe head and neck pain and difficulty moving her hands.
But she’s lucky to be alive today – every minute a stroke goes untreated, nearly 2million brain cells die, leading to irreversible brain damage and death.
Ms Beckwith is one of the 800,000 Americans who suffer a stroke every year, or one person every 40 seconds, according to the CDC.
The leading cause of death is climbing in young people, with experts racing to find the cause.
Some officials have suggested the rise could be due to surges in obesity, high blood pressure, and drug addiction, which all increase the risk of stroke.
And others believe young people are more prone to stress, making them more vulnerable.
After two days of debilitating pain, Ms Beckwith went to the hospital, where tests revealed a tear in her vertebral artery, one of the major suppliers of blood to the brain and spine.
This led to blood flow from that artery to the back of her brain becoming blocked, causing a stroke in her cerebellum and occipital lobe. As cells in these areas died, Ms Beckwith found herself unable to walk, talk, or even grip a pencil.
Doctors believe at some point during her sparring session, impact to her neck caused the artery to tear and, therefore, led to a stroke.
‘Everything went into high speed very quickly,’ Ms Beckwith said in a video on her YouTube channel.
The CDC report found stroke has increased in people aged 18-64 by around 15 percent when comparing stroke cases from 2011-2013 to stroke cases from 2020-2022
Following her injury, Ms Beckwith has had to give up jiu-jitsu entirely. ‘It was a huge part of my identity,’ she said
She spent several days in the intensive care unit before being discharged.
‘For the next three months, I was told to do nothing,’ she said.
Once a fitness buff competing in intense sports like jiu-jitsu, Ms Beckwith was only allowed to go for short, supervised walks and lift nothing heavier than a gallon of milk. Even her 90-pound dog, Leo, had to stay elsewhere for two months.
Ms Beckwith, who had her foot amputated five years earlier, was reliving familiar trauma, bedbound and unable to seek solace in her hobbies.
It’s unclear if Ms Beckwith’s leg amputation had any anything to do with her stroke, but experts believe it could increase the risk of cardiac issues like stroke and heart failure.
A major study out of South Korea, for example, found patients who had undergone amputations were at an increased risk of atrial fibrillation – an irregular heart rate – and heart attack.
This could be because amputation raises resting heart rate, blood pressure, and can narrow blood vessels.
‘I had to keep reminding myself that everything is temporary. Being stuck at home without all of the tools I normally use to get through things was very difficult,’ Ms Beckwith said.
‘But I tried to get better. I would say it probably took at least three months before I was like, “I think I feel like a person.”‘
A recent report from the CDC found strokes in patients under 45 have risen by nearly 15 percent, along with a 16 percent increase in patients 45 to 64.
The report also found that people who didn’t graduate from high school had the biggest increase in stroke cases, rising 18.2 percent.
While the risk of someone under 45 having a stroke is still low, several lifestyle factors on the rise could increase the chances.
For example, a small study in the Journal of Applied Psychology suggested vaping led to issues regulating blood flow to the brain, though the mechanism was not clear.
Having one stroke also makes patients more vulnerable to another one.
In May, just as Ms Beckwith was starting to get back to normal, she woke up to an odd feeling in the middle of the night: ‘Suddenly, that same feeling that I had when I had the stroke started hitting out of nowhere, like 0 to 60.’
Ms Beckwith struggled to keep her balance and could barely speak, losing control of half of her body.
She thought her worst nightmare was coming true – that she was suffering another stroke.
Ms Beckwith is now focusing on recovery and finding other ways to stay active, such as dance
But doctors believe Ms Beckwith had a hemiplegic migraine, a rare type of migraine that occurs in one in 100 migraine sufferers and mimics the symptoms of a stroke, such as weakness and trouble speaking.
Now, she is slowly getting back to fitness, though she has been forced to give up jiu-jitsu to reduce the risk of having another stroke.
‘I’m doing a lot better. I’m not back to 100 percent – didn’t expect I would be – and I have no idea when or if that will occur,’ she said.
‘I don’t think I’m ready to come to terms with… how this has altered my life and my everyday experience and my health.’
She added: ‘If I have an interest in staying alive, I can never do jiu-jitsu again. It was a huge part of my identity… I have never found a sport that made me feel so free, especially after losing my leg. That is the only place in the entire world that I do not feel disabled.’
However, Ms Beckwith is now trying to find other less intensive sports, such as dancing, to stay active as she recovers.
‘As I grieve losses, it’s also cool to find new things,’ she said.
