Hi and welcome!

I'm curious when you were actually diagnosed. Was it seven weeks ago or was the diagnosis some time before the thrombectomy? I'm not sure, since you're talking about PTS, which is usually not diagnosed until quite a while (1-2 years usually, or longer) after the initial clot diagnosis.

A few things... first, recovery is never a straight line. You'll have some days that are worse than others in terms of symptoms and anxiety. It doesn't mean you've reclotted ... it can mean that you've just pushed yourself a little too hard. Have you been getting more active? That can cause the pain and swelling, too, as you get back to "real" life. It's also possible that the weather is changing and the changing pressures in the atmostphere are affecting your leg.

Me personally, with my first (and worst) DVT, I had aches and pains that came and went up until about two years out from diagnosis and I also had a chronic clot in that leg.

Also, in terms of chronic clotting (such as you have in your groin), I'll also say that there's no reason to assume that it'll never get any better. With my first clot, it was still there four years later when I got my second DVT.... so, I pretty much assumed that I would have it forever. However, I had an ultrasound earlier this year and my first DVT was almost completely gone. Some light scarring, they said, but otherwise it was gone. That was about nine years after my initial diagnosis. I was quite shocked, to say the least!

Hopefully, these new aches and pains will start to fade. I'd baby the leg for a couple of days (elevation and whatnot) and see if that helps. However, if you feel really concerned to the point where you're not sleeping at night, it might be worth it to check with your doc. It's very unlikely that you've clotted, but sometimes it is just reassuring to hear it from the experts.

Keep us posted on how you are doing!

I'm not sure exactly when your DVT was diagnosed, but PTS isually isn't diagnosed until at least 6 months post diagnosis and even that seems too soon to make that diagnosis. PTS is usually an issue well after diagnosis. For instance, my PTS symptoms didn't start until abou 18 months after my DVT diagnosis.

I can't speak to the procedure you had, but I can say that what your describing, outside of the headache, seems very normal for a while after diagnosis. Sometimes pain and swelling restarts after initial diagnosis as you become more active.

I would check in with the doctor who did the procedure if it's concerning though, just to ease your mind.

Toss and I were typing at the same time!

Thanks guys for your responses and I apologize for how long this post is. I still know so little and am not sure what info really even matters, but at least I get to share my story (this is the first time I've spoke about it with people who have actually experienced it and as you can tell I'm strangely excited about it!). I was diagnosed 4 days before (7/28) the surgery (8/1) after 1) a week of stiffness in my hip/buttock area 2) a visit to an after hours office on 7/26 when mild swelling in my thigh and extreme heaviness finally began (or at least the first time I noticed it) where I was diagnosed with a strained IT band, 3) then an ER visit on 7/28 when the prescribed prednisone had no effect, swelling actually trippled and went all the way down through to my foot. At my post op a week or so after surgery, the doctor told me since my swelling had gotten so severe and due to the extensiveness of the clots, and existing clot, the pain and swelling would continue (both were still nearly as bad as before surgery) and he mentioned PTS at some point during our discussion but I think I just assumed since I'm experiencing the continuing swelling, etc that I was experiencing PTS - I'm still trying to absorb all this info and make sense of it. Despite everything I've done considerably well. Walking required a cane until around 3 or 4 weeks ago thanks to physical therapy. I only experienced pain while I was wearing knee high compression hose for the first couple of weeks, but once bruising behind my knee started we discovered I needed to switch to thigh highs and that has amazingly made all the difference for my pain ( went from at least 1 pain pill every 4 hours - sometimes 2 - to none 24 hours after putting on the thigh highs). I was told I'd be out of work for 2 months and actually returned in two weeks since I was doing so well. I'm basically at the level of activity I previously had and have been for several weeks (just depends on my energy level on some days). Although I did start out elevating my leg at different intervals throughout the day, but the only time elevating seems to make any difference in the mild swelling is when I elevate while sleeping so I quit elevating during the day about 3 weeks ago. Perhaps it was doing me more good than I realized! I know (or hope at least) that the clot will dissolve over time. I think with the past several weeks going so well and being so "ahead of schedule" I had just convinced myself that I wasn't going to have much trouble. Naive, I know, but I guess this at least lets me hope for and look forward to another few weeks with only minor troubles once this bout of pain and increased swelling stops! I've spent more of the day elevating today than doing anything else, and the pain is better. It does keep coming back after I'm up for a little bit, but it doesn't continuously hurt as bad as it did earlier today and its not coming back almost as soon as I get up like it was this morning so I'm more at ease about it. Now if I can just get my INR right so I can get rid of these headaches and get my mental security back, I'll be smooth sailing until the next step backward! :) gotta stay positive at least!

Ah, yes, thanks for the backstory! I'm glad they finally got you figured out, despite the earlier misdiagnosis. (Sadly, all to common a story among clotters.)

I think your doctor mentioned PTS as something that *could* happen down the road, not something that is going on now. And, not everyone winds up dealing with PTS. I don't have PTS, despite waiting to go to the doctor until I could barely walk and years of having a chronic clot in my leg.

The swelling and pain you mention are pretty standard for recovery. It comes and goes for a while for most of us. When I say I had aches and pains for two years, I should clarify to say that beyond the first six months or so, it was intermittent and was not constant by any means. They'd show up if I was just pushing myself too hard. Or, if I exercised. Or sometimes, if I was just tired, I'd find myself limping just by default. (I still do this, actually, when I'm really tired. Although, I have no pain at all.)

It sounds like you're doing all the right stuff in caring for your leg. Compression stockings (my clot was right behind my knee... no way I'd do knee highs!), elevation, resting when you're able. To me, it sounds like you're just going through regular recovery. Definitely a jolt to to feel like you're going backward in recovery, but that's pretty standard too. Hope you start to see a return to where you were soon.

As rmb and toss said, you are way too early in recovery to worry about PTS. Recovery for me was a long road. LOTS of ups and downs. I would start feeling great, then have a bad day,or even weeks. It can still be that way. I just try to do what I can to help my body heal. For me, it was at least 6m before I started feeling better. Now 18m out, I still have bad days. Just do what you can, and let you body heal. It can be a long road, but you will get there!!!

Why were you given prednisone (Corticosteroids)? This may have caused worsening of your DVT symptoms, see: http://www.arthritistoday.org/news/corticosteroids-blood-clots-266.php

Here is the abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23546607