(Photo credit: Instagram)
Former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Nene Leakes, is no stranger to sharing her life on social media. But this time she shared something personal about her son–news that shocked her fans young and old. Nene shared on her Instagram stories on Monday that her son Brentt suffered from congestive heart failure AND a stroke two weeks ago. Brentt Leakes is only 23.
You would think something like this would only happen to a person that is older and may have other health conditions, so this news is shocking.
“This is not the way I wanted it to come out,” Nene Leakes said in her video. “We wanted to be able to talk about it ourselves when Brentt was in a better place … but I would rather the correct thing be out there than something that’s not correct.”
(Photo credit: Instagram)
The widow of Gregg Leakes and mother of two said she didn’t want to go into details about how she found her son and the condition he was in, but said that “it was very scary.” She said her son is currently having trouble speaking.
Stroke survivors with right-brain injuries frequently have speech and communication problems. Many of these individuals have a hard time pronouncing speech sounds properly because of the weakness or lack of control in the muscles on the left side of the mouth and face. This is called “dysarthria.”
Doctors are still running tests, Nene Leakes said, because they don’t know exactly what caused the stroke. One theory is that he may have unknowingly contracted COVID-19, as the virus has been associated with heart problems.
Heart attacks and strokes have quite a bit in common: they are both medical emergencies caused by a sudden cut-off in blood flow. In a heart attack, the blood flow to your heart is suddenly blocked. A stroke occurs because of a sudden interruption of blood flow in your brain.
Heart failure is more prevalent in African Americans than in whites, imposes higher rates of death and morbidity, and has a more malignant course. According to American Heart Association statistics, the annual incidence of heart failure in whites is approximately 6 per 1,000 person, while in African Americans it is 9.1 per 1,000 person.
Heart failure (HF) and ischemic stroke (IS) share similar risk factors and HF itself is a risk factor for IS. In addition to that, IS in patients with HF is more severe and has a poor prognosis. Previous studies showed that approximately 10% to 24% of patients with stroke have heart failure.
One way to prevent heart failure is to prevent and control conditions that can cause it, such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
Heart failure signs and symptoms may include:
See your doctor if you think you might be experiencing signs or symptoms of heart failure. Call 911 or emergency medical help if you have any of the following:
She said her son does not drink or do drugs, which are known factors in increasing the risk of heart failure and stroke.
“They have run a number of tests on him to see what could have possibly made this happen to him,” Nene Leakes said. “We are still trying to figure it out, because if we knew the cause, obviously we could treat the cause.”
After a brief pause after the first set of videos, Leakes returned to her social media to talk about the one-year death anniversary of Brentt’s father, Gregg Leakes, who died in September 2021 at age 66 after a three-year battle with colon cancer. Leakes said this past September was particularly difficult for her son.
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“He was very close to his dad, and he’s been super stressed out over it,” she said. “I don’t even know if that has anything to do with it at all. I really ask the doctors questions like that, and they seem to think that is not the case with Brentt.”
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