A woman suffered a stroke by tearing a major blood vessel in her neck while practising a yoga headstand.
Rebecca Leigh, 40, of Gambrills, Maryland, had been filming a tutorial for her 26,000 social media fans just hours before the injury.
Her vision became blurry, her limbs weak and she had headaches, but she put it down to a prior health condition.
Two days later, after seeing a doctor, she was shocked to discover that despite being young and healthy, she had suffered a stroke and was at risk of another any minute.
It was a 'hollowback' handstand that had caused her right carotid artery in her neck to tear on that morning of October 8, 2017.
Today, the yoga obsessive cannot speak for more than a few minutes due to nerve damage, has daily headaches and has severe memory loss.
Astonishingly, just one month after the terrifying experience, Mrs Leigh was back on her mat and she still practices yoga for an hour every day.
Rebecca Leigh, 40, of Gambrills, Maryland, had been practising a yoga pose when she tore her right carotid artery. She suffered a stroke and took six weeks to heal
Mrs Leigh's vision became blurry, her limbs weak and she had headaches, but she put it down to a prior health condition. Two days later, after seeing a doctor, she was shocked to discover she had in fact suffered a stroke. Pictured in hospital
Mrs Leigh, who for six weeks was barely able to get out of bed as her artery healed, said: 'After decades of focusing on working out and my diet and making as many healthy decisions as I could for my body, having a stroke by doing yoga just didn't seem fair.
'But I had to get back out there and do the things that made me happy and one of those things was obviously my yoga practice.'
Acarotid artery dissection (CAD) occurs when blood leaks into a tear in the wall of the blood vessel.
As the blood pools, it causes the layers of the artery wall to separate. This prevents oxygen reaching the brain and is a major cause of stroke, mostly in people under the age of 50.
A carotid dissection is a tear in one of your carotid arteries. These are a set of two arteries at the sides of your neck that supply blood to your brain.
A dissection is a tear of the inner layer of the wall of an artery. The tear lets blood get in between the layers of the wall and separate them. This causes the artery wall to bulge.
The bulge can slow or stop blood flow through the artery. It can also cause problems by pressing on nearby tissue or nerves.
The tear can also trigger your body's clotting system. A clot can then block blood flow at the site of the tear. Blocked or decreased blood flow can lead to a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or a stroke.
A carotid dissection can happen at any age. It tends to occur more often in younger adults than in older adults. It is a common cause of stroke in people younger than age 50. It is slightly more common in men than in women.
This condition is often caused by a neck injury from things such as:
Swimming or scuba diving
Skating
Dancing
Playing sports such as tennis, basketball, or volleyball
Doing yoga
Riding roller coasters or other rides
Jumping on a trampoline
Giving birth
Having sex
Sneezing or coughing
Having a chiropractic adjustment to your neck (rare)
Source: Cedars-Sinal Hospital
Mrs Leigh said: 'I was on my front porch practicing a pretty intense type of yoga handstand called a hollowback handstand.
'This pose requires you to extend your neck, drop your hips back and arch your lower spine all while in a headstand.
'I felt that I had really nailed it but as I walked inside my house, my peripheral vision went out and the rest of my vision became blurry.
'It was like a curtain coming down all around me.
'I sat down and tried to put my hair into a ponytail but my left arm flopped around without any control.'
At first Mrs Leigh attributed the symptoms to the severely herniated discs in her neck which she had been diagnosed with in her early twenties.
She said: 'I knew that arm numbness could be a symptom of that. It only lasted for five minutes but then my head began to hurt.
'I have suffered from headaches and migraines since I was a teenager but I knew this was different.'
Two days later, Mrs Leigh was horrified to notice that her pupils were different sizes.
'My right eye drooped and my pupils were different sizes,' she said.
'It was terrifying. It was then that I knew something was very, very wrong.'
Mrs Leigh and husband Kevin, 45, who works in federal law enforcement, immediately went to the emergency room where an MRI scan revealed Mrs Leigh had suffered a stroke.
She said: 'The doctor on staff came into the little room we were waiting in and said in a monotone voice: "Well, you my dear, had a stroke".
'Kevin and I both let out a little laugh, because we thought he had to be kidding.
'There was no way that someone my age, in my health, could have had a stroke. But he responded to our laughter in solemn silence and his face said it all.'
She spent the next five days in the neurological intensive care unit as doctors battled to understand why an active, healthy eating, non smoker aged 39 could have suffered a stroke.
Mrs Leigh said: 'After all the blood work, ultrasounds, MRIs and CT scans, it was finally a CTA scan that explained it.'
While doing handstands Mrs Leigh had torn her right carotid artery, one of the four arteries that supplies blood to the brain.
The tear sent a blood
