14 DAY TRIAL // 26-year-old twins Kathryn and Kimberly Tucker don't only share physical features, they have both recently suffered strokes, without an underlying condition.
The pair incurred the strokes nine months apart, ABC News reports. Kathryn first felt her vision get blurry in July of last year while she was in bed in her Tempe, Arizona apartment.
She felt a pain in the back of her head and doctors didn't think much of it at first.
She called an ambulance, but she was released from the hospital with doctors writing the pain off to a sharp headache. It was later revealed that she suffered a stroke to one side of her occipital lobe.
"I slept for three days straight. [...] Then, when I woke up, my vision was horrible. Everything was distorted and one-dimensional. I could barely get around," she describes.
Nine months after the incident, her sister Kimberly was running when she felt similar symptoms. By then, she was already familiar with her sister's ordeal.
"On the day of my stroke I did a 5K run. [...] I was feeling extra thirsty the whole time and went home to take a nap."
"My vision closed in almost completely. [...] I wasn't making a lot of sense and was not able to form complete thoughts. But I knew I was having a stroke," she recalls.
Her stroke has been traced to the opposite side of the occipital lobe, affecting her vision as it did her sister's.
Since the sisters do not suffer from any known genetic conditions, doctors are puzzled as to what has caused the strokes. They both take migraine and birth control pills.
"Honestly, it's rare for us to actually evaluate two sisters who've had strokes within months of each other.
"If they had a family history, it would not be a surprise. It's quite uncommon," comments Dr. Joni Clark, a vascular neurologist working at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.