Dr. Terry Dubrow had a ministroke. He wants people to learn from his medical emergency.

Dr. Terry Dubrow recently had a medical emergency. When the co-host of E!'s Botched was out to dinner with his wife, Heather Dubrow, and their son Nicholas, he experienced strokelike symptoms.

At first the Newport Beach, Calif.-based plastic surgeon thought that the incident was inconsequential, as he returned to feeling normal after momentarily slurring his speech. After initially refusing medical care, his "persistent and insistent wife literally saved my life" by convincing him to go to the hospital. There, he was diagnosed and treated for a transient ischemic attack (TIA) — otherwise known as a ministroke.

Now Terry is answering three questions from Yahoo Life about how he experienced a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain, and hoping that others can learn from it.

What did you experience at that moment at the dinner table?

Terry recalls being in conversation with his son and recognizing that his words suddenly didn't come out properly when asking a question. "To my perception, it felt like I sort of had a lazy tongue, that I needed a second to clear the food that I was eating. It seemed very innocent to me," he says. To Heather, however, it registered as a larger concern.

"My perception was that she overreacted, she stood up instantly and told my son to call 911," Terry continues. "I went to the bathroom and my son's banging on the door because Heather's worried I'm having a stroke in there. But it had already cleared. It seemed to have lasted maybe one minute."

By the time Terry got out of the bathroom, he heard an ambulance approaching the restaurant. "We got into the ambulance and I said to the paramedics, 'Look guys, apparently I was slurring my speech, but it didn't last very long.'" He encouraged them to do a stroke check with the "BE FAST" method and felt vindicated when paramedics discovered no lingering concerns. "Heather's banging on the door, telling the paramedics, 'Take him to [Cedars-Sinai].' I said, 'I'm not going.' I wanted to go home." So the family did.

How did you ultimately get to the hospital for testing?

"[Heather and I] have this agreement that if I'm ever having a medical problem, she calls two of my very, very smart physician friends. So she called them and said, 'Hey, I'm concerned Terry's had a TIA, having a stroke and he won't go to the hospital.' So they start calling me and they're talking to me and I said, 'Guys, listen to me. Ask me anything. I'm completely clear.' They go, 'Yeah, but come on, man. This could be a TIA,'" Terry says.

Terry and Heather were in separate Ubers at the time, headed back home from the restaurant in Los Angeles. "The clock is ticking, I'm halfway down to Newport Beach, Heather's behind me and my other cardiologist friend calls me. He goes, 'All right, listen, you don't want to go in, I get it. You want to go home, you'll work out tomorrow. But think about it like this. You love your wife, you love your son, right? They are massively traumatized. I talked to both of them. If you go in tonight, you're taking care of your family, and that is your primary responsibility.' And as soon as he said that, I said, 'OK.' So he appealed to me as a father and a husband."

Terry recalls walking into the emergency room at Hoag Hospital at 10 p.m. on Aug. 3, a Thursday night, and telling the nurses that he had momentarily slurred his speech. He was immediately taken to get blood drawn and to have his body's blood vessels scanned.

"I was so confident that I had nothing that I actually got back from the MRI and took off the gown and put on my regular clothes," he says. "The nurse rolls in with the laptop, I asked if the results were back. I look at it, I take one look at Heather. I go take off my shirt, I take off my pants and I put my gown on. I go, 'I'm going to be admitted tonight. I had a TIA.'"

What was the cause?

Being a doctor himself, Terry had hoped that the cause was a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a small hole between the upper chambers of the heart that didn't close the way it's supposed to after birth. "If you're going to have something like [a TIA] happen, you want it to be diagnosed rapidly and to be fixable," says Terry. In the case that a blood clot traveled up to his brain via a PFO, it would be fixable.

"The doctor did a test called a transesophageal echocardiogram. They use an ultrasonic probe to see if there's a hole in your heart. They put me to sleep and then they wake me up and go, 'Terry, you have a big PFO,'" he recalls. "So the cardiologist comes in and through my groin sticks a catheter in and they just put a plug in it. It took 11 minutes and they plugged it and my risk of a stroke is now zero."

What you need to know about TIAs

What is a TIA?

A transient ischemic attack is referred to simply as a "ministroke," according to cardiologist Dr. Ernst von Schwarz. More specifically, it's a brief interruption in blood flow to the brain that results in strokelike symptoms that last a short period of time.

"By definition, if the symptoms last less than 24 hours, it's a TIA. If it lasts more than 24 hours, it's a stroke," says Terry.

What are those symptoms?

Unilateral weakness or numbness, vision problems, difficulty talking or understanding speech, and loss of balance are a few listed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). They occur suddenly and do not last long; however, they need to be immediately addressed and assessed by a medical team in order to be diagnosed as a TIA rather than an acute stroke. Treatment is determined by the cause.

What are the causes?

Schwarz explains that the "main underlying cause is uncontrolled high blood pressure," while other risk factors include atrial fibrillation, diabetes and cigarette smoking. "Clots from the lower extremities through a hole in the heart" is another that the cardiologist names, which explains the role of PFOs.

"PFO is not uncommon," says Schwarz. "It's detected in approximately 11 to 12% of healthy adults and up to 35% in autopsies. PFOs are usually asymptomatic and therefore only detected if someone had a stroke or ministroke or by routine echocardiography. Once an event such as a stroke or similar symptoms occurs, it needs to be closed via a transcutaneous needle approach through the groin."

What are the risks if somebody doesn't seek treatment after a TIA?

NINDS says that TIAs are often "warning signs that a person is at risk for a more serious and debilitating stroke," noting that about one-third of those who experience a TIA "will have an acute stroke some time in the future."

"Another stroke can occur with permanent brain damage that even can lead to death," says Schwarz.