Silent strokes scare the Hades out of me. What is interesting about recent stroke stats is that more young people are having them. In fact, I personally know two people who had rather massive strokes in their 30's. One of them was a former boyfriend whom I started dating a few years after his stroke. By all accounts, his recovery is incredible. He's an engineer, back to work, etc. etc. -- what is less obvious is that he continues to have personality "lapses." That is the only way I can describe them. He's like different people at different times, it gets worse with stress. He repeats everything, like stories he's told you, over and over again. This started worsening and he would have forgetful episodes where he is unable to remember something he said or did or entire conversations. That is what led to our break up. He became increasingly difficult and argumentative (frustration at being the former genius who can no longer remember things that should be easy for him, such as parts of the periodic table). It made him become verbally abusive. The reason that I bring him up is that I kept warning him he was having silent strokes. He refused to even entertain the idea that his miracle recovery was being compromised by silent strokes. Scary part? He works at a power plant in New Jersey and he's the guy who works the numbers out that work the machinery. No one at his job knows he's had a stroke.
The other friend who had a stroke at 33 years old was having silent strokes. We (her friends) actually feel like shit about this because she'd been acting strangely for about a year, she was slurring her words and acting drunk. In fact, her neighbors called the police because they thought she was drunk picking her child up at the bus stop. She apparently drove up a curb, got out of her car all wobbly, was slurring. The strokes still went undiagnosed until she had a major stroke a few months later.
I wish I had realized she was having strokes. We kept thinking she was drinking or on drugs and we all missed the signs--including her own husband who was convinced she was doing drugs or drinking and hiding it from him.
It would make an interesting study to see if the chances of silent strokes or major strokes increase for bariatric patients.