So your clot occurred just 7 weeks? Or did it happen before that, and now you've just been diagnosed with the chronic dvt and PTS?

When I had pain in my calf, my surgeon (I had knee surgery) thought it was a superficial clot and advised I mix heat and cold to increase blood flow. This worked great for the pain BUT (big BUT), the clot then moved to my lungs.

I think that once a clot has been around long enough and secured within the vein then heat might be used as treatment. I just wanted to share my experience as a caution for using heat to early in the process.

Good luck!

They are saying my clots are probably close to a year old and will more than likely never dissolve. They don't know why I didn't feel anything prior!

Ok that makes sense. At first I thought you were just diagnosed and they were already telling you it was a chronic DVT and you had PTS, which would be unusual.

I got a PE from my DVT, and I had PE symptoms way before I ever had DVT symptoms. They suspect that my DVT was around for a while before I ever felt it.

If it feels good and seems to help, use heat. I have PTS and don't do heat as it doesn't seem to do much for me. My PTS is more intermittent though. Compression stockings may help you as well. The insurance company is going to determine through their health management and clinical guidelines if the whirlpool would be medically necessary.

I don't know the timeline of your dvt and I may be wrong but if it happened 7 weeks ago immediately following the birth of your baby, the pregnancy and surgery most definitely would have contributed to the dvt. Those would be the risk factors in addition to the blood disorder. The fact that you say chronic is a bit confusing because those would be older clots. If it happened 7 weeks ago, those would be relatively new clots, you are very early in recovery and I would say that you would definitely see improvement with time.

This is off topic from your original question regarding heat treatment but are you wearing compression stockings? When I had my 2nd dvt it was so extensive all the valves were damaged in my leg. This was 3 years ago and I was diagnosed with PTS early on, about 7 weeks after diagnosis but it was very obvious in my case. Typically PTS is diagnosed later on. To this day, I cannot stand up or walk without the stocking. My leg immediately turns purple and swells and the pain is not tolerable. The blood all goes down to my lower leg and can't circulate back to my heart. The stocking alleviates some of it and I couldn't imagine living without it. Even as extreme as my PTS is, I have seen improvement in the 3 years since diagnosis, not a lot, but some.

Oops, sorry, I was writing as you were posting your response regarding the age of the clots. Disregard my post regarding that.

I do wonder though why you are just now experiencing symptoms from chronic clots. Do the doctors have an answer about that? Did they put you on anticoagulants?

They have no idea why I didn't have symptoms! When I finally had the severe pain, my whole leg had clots...kinda scary to go from nothing wrong to this will affect the rest of your life! I wear compression socks and that helps a lot. Ever since starting the heat..the pain isn't near what it was and I can be up more than I was before the swelling and throbbing starts. Yes, I am on warfarin and with my blood disorder may be for the rest of my life! Just hoping for most of my activity back. I played college soccer and ran a triatholon last year...so this barely being able to walk for more than a few minutes without pain and heaviness is killing me! Thanks for the answers! Nice to know people out there for support!

With my first DVT, the doctor told me light heat and I used a little microwave beanbag thingie for my entire recovery. I really felt like the heat helped me and relaxed me--both important things. I started using heat the day I came out of the hospital and never had any issues. Might just be because my doc decided the heat was good for me and wouldn't cause issues, based on my clot.

I used heat with the second DVT too and was great.

I couldn't used heat when I wound up with PEs though (after coming off warfarin for the second DVT). Putting heat on my chest made me feel like I was suffocating. The effectiveness could just depend on the clot.

Don't know what insurance will or won't cover in these areas. I'm not sure you could prove that a whirlpool tub is going to help any more than just sitting in a regular tub, but I guess it is worth a shot!

You are going to have to read your insurance policy to figure that out. If insurance won't pay for it though, it is possible you could deduct it as a medical expense on taxes. Check with your accountant.