This strikes me as a bit odd. It doesn't sound like you injured the foot and so there's no reason to get a lot of painful swelling all of a sudden. I think I'd check in with the doc. Sudden changes in symptoms (especially with no clear cause), IMHO, should always be run by a doc.

Agreed, TNT. That said, my ankle does very swollen on some days-- kind of alarmingly so, and at times I have wondered if something was wrong-- however, it pretty much always has been since the first clot, really no worse after the second. I may have had periods of six months or more when the swelling was less noticeable.

I would definitely see the doctor, but before and after you do, while it is swollen, do everything you can to avoid wearing socks. Teva sandals are your friend! Don't know if you're male or female, but another trick is go for Topsiders type shoes with no socks, or fancy driving moccasins with no socks.

Also, those little sports socks which are below the ankle are pretty good. This does seem to help the swelling go down. Even with Tevas, I sometimes have to loosen the velcro straps at the end of the day. (I have always been afraid that when I'm wearing ski boots on the rare occasions I still ski, my foot will get so swollen I won't be able to get my foot out of the boot, but that's never happened!)

I do have a tip for the constricting socks, however: Cut off the top part, which usually has some kind of elastic thread in it. The stocks still stay up. This eliminates most of the problem, and no one can see it if you're wearing long pants.

It shortens the lifetime of the socks, but not even by much, they don't seem to unravel particularly.

With socks, one thing I have found is that some shoes are just much worse than others-- and you can't tell until you've worn the shoes for a few days, which sucks. I have dozens of pairs of shoes that I can't wear, or can only wear for short periods of time, because they make the swelling worse.

The downside of not wearing socks at all is that my bad ankle is always pretty discolored looking, but I wear very long pants. If I'm standing up or sitting at a desk, I don't worry about it. But I think comfort and safety has to come before vanity and fashion... I have no idea whether wearing constricting socks and having swollen feet is actually dangerous, but I don't intend to find out.

My situation is kind of unusual in that I also had a stingray sting me in the foot connected to the bad leg in-between clots one and two, so generally my foot and ankle is probably more damaged than the average bear.