Deformity of the mouth, weakness on one side of the body, confusion of thought and speech disorders... These signs are not misleading, yet stroke remains the leading cause of death for women, ahead of breast cancer and heart attack. Above all, they are unfamiliar with the symptoms. There are two reasons for this, one medical, the other social.
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Women's life paths are punctuated by situations or periods at risk of stroke, related to the drop in estrogen (before cycles or menopause), pregnancies, diseases such as endometriosis (risk of stroke increased by 34%), among others. Specialists have identified two particularly high-risk periods: around the age of 30-35 and around the age of 70-75.
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Preventing Stroke
In their social and daily lives, 29.3% of women smoke (Santé publique France, 2023). They are drinking more and more according to all studies, which, combined with the use of hormonal contraceptives and/or high blood pressure, can cause a blood vessel to block and rupture. And this is even true for very young women, who are convinced that stroke only affects the elderly. However, 25% of strokes occur in people under the age of 55. Finally, over the age of sixty this time, 70% of family caregivers are women, who sometimes neglect to take care of themselves.
If you can act when the stroke occurs (you have to go quickly and call 15), you can do everything you can to prevent it. While October 29 will mark the World Day against this pathology, the association Vaincre l'AVC, which launched the Women and Stroke collective in 2021, invites you to consult a profile and risk assessor on its website. Three numbers should be monitored first: blood pressure (no more than 14.9), cholesterol (total at 2 g) and blood sugar (around 1 g).
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You absolutely have to immerse yourself in Margot Turcat's terrific graphic novel, Mon petit AVC (Ed. Larousse). Victim of a stroke at the age of 33, when she did not have any of the following risk factors - smoking, alcohol, blood pressure, overweight, cholesterol, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes - but lived a life as a teacher and mother with a lot of stress, the young woman suffered delays and incomprehension in her hospital care. The concreteness of his bubbles of distress and healing touches the quick, in a pedagogical novel that resolutely serves the cause. "Everything in the book is 100% real, nothing is watered down or fictionalized," she sums up. Courage in mind.V.C.