Preventing stroke

Start the conversation with your doctor early

The older you are, the greater your risk for stroke. You can’t stop aging, but you can take action to lower your risk. The first step is having a conversation with your primary care physician.

And that conversation shouldn’t wait until you’re 65.

“I would say that people as young as 40—maybe even younger, depending on their family history—are ready to talk about stroke prevention, and to understand the ‘why’ behind our recommendations,” says Rusty Harrington, MD, a primary care physician at St. Joseph’s/Candler Primary Care on the Islands.

Dr. Harrington admits that prevention can sometimes be a hard sell to patients who feel fine. But ignoring unhealthy habits now can increase your risk of not only stroke but other debilitating conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease.

“As a younger person who feels okay, if I’m a smoker who’s not eating healthy, what I’m doing is laying the groundwork for this to be a problem later,” he says. Other controllable risk factors for stroke include high blood pressure, obesity, lack of exercise and excessive alcohol consumption.

Dr. Harrington encourages patients to approach these risk factors with curiosity rather than guilt or fear. When patients are actively engaged in goal-setting, the results can be life-changing. For example, a patient who’s not quite ready to quit smoking may decide to start exercising regularly. Once they find success with their first goal, patients are often open to more lifestyle changes.

“Then the question for me becomes, ‘How can I help?’” Dr. Harrington says.

The risk for patients with a family history of stroke may be a little more tangible, but Dr. Harrington hopes that a little imagination can get patients asking the right questions.

“What might your life look like if you don’t follow the recommendations for preventing stroke? What might it look like if you do?” he says. “Let’s not wait until we have the life-threatening experience to consider this. Let’s talk about what you can do now.”