I recently had a blood clot, may still have it, but my treatment was initially heparin injected and coumadin tabs which I am still on. both are blood thinners and the idea is to dissolve the clot so it doesn't migrate and enter the lungs where it could lead to a pulmonary embolism.
I don't pretend to understand all this, just passing on what I was told.
good luck to your friend. I hope she gets some relief.

Hi Norma,
I hope this info helps your friend:
Kidney Disease and Your Heart: The Hidden Link

When you have kidney disease, it might not occur to you to have your heart checked out. Or, if you have heart disease, you might not think to have your kidneys tested. As it turns out, checking both your heart and your kidneys is a good idea if you have either kind of health problem.

Why? Because diseases that affect the kidneys can also damage your heartand vice versa. In fact, many doctors think of the heart and kidneys as one interlinked body system rather than separate organs.i

Having both heart and kidney disease can cause 20 times the risk of death from heart problems than either problem alone.ii In looking at more than 18,000 people, a decline in kidney function predicted a 62% higher risk of death from heart failure.iii Heart disease happens very early in the course of kidney diseaseso even just a small decline in kidney function should trigger efforts to help protect your heart.iv
Your Heart and Kidneys Never Sleep

While you can take a break after a hard day, your heart cant. Its job is to pump oxygen-rich blood from your lungs to each cell in your body, minute after minute, day after day. If your heart beats at the average rate of about 75 times a minute, this means more than 39 million beats a year!

With each heartbeat, blood is pushed through your kidneys for filtering. Though your two kidneys are each just about the size of your closed fist, they process about 200 quarts of blood per day to make about two liters of urine.v To do their work, your kidneys need a constant supply of blood at a normal pressure. Too little blood or too little pressure can cause acute, sudden kidney failure. Too much blood or too much pressure can lead to scarring that can cause chronic, permanent kidney disease.
The Low Side of High Blood Pressure

Healthy kidneys work with your heart to control your blood pressure. Any time your blood pressure falls, kidneys releasethe enzyme renin into your blood. Renin signals your liver to make the hormone angiotensin, which tells blood vessels to constrictraising blood pressure. This renin-angiotensin system (RAS) acts on your heart and your kidneys. An overactive RAS can lead to kidney problems. Cells may grow too fast or too slowly, causing inflammation, hardening of the arteries, and blood clots.vi

High blood pressure is quite common in the United States, and can damage your heart and your kidneys. High blood pressure causes tiny tears in the flexible lining of your blood vessels. The scars that form make vessels walls stiff.vii When this happens, your heart has to work much harder to pump blood through the damaged vessels. These damaged vessels may not be able to deliver enough blood to organs so this can lead to both heart and kidney failure.
Whats Blood got to do with it?

A number of health problems that involve your blood can harm both your heart and your kidneys. One is anemiaa shortage of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Kidneys make erythropoietin (EPO), the hormone that tells your bone marrow to make red blood cells. As the kidneys fail, less EPO is made, so you make fewer red blood cells. With fewer red blood cells, your body does not get enough oxygen. Anemia can speed up the rate of kidney failure.

Other blood-related risk factors for heart and kidney problems include:

1. High blood levels of cholesterol a waxy fat that can clog your arteries and lead to blood clots that can damage your heart or kidneys
2. Inflammation your bodys response to infection or other injury, which can cause swelling and damage in your blood vessels
3. Blood vessel calcification a build up of stone-like crystals that can occur when kidney disease throws off the balance of calcium and phosphorus in your blood

The human body is very complex, and doctors are actively studying even more reasons why the heart and kidneys affect each other.
What You Can Do

To help your kidneys and your heart work as well as possible, do what you can to keep the normal balance inside your body.

The main job of your kidneys is to maintain homeostasisa constant environment inside your body. Kidneys have built in sensors. At any given moment, healthy kidneys ensure that blood levels of water, salts, and other key chemicals are in perfect balance. When they begin to fail, this very precise system starts to fall apart. While we may not yet know exactly why this affects the heart, we know that it does. Here are some things you can do:

1. Control your blood pressure. Blood pressure pills, diet, and exercise can help reduce the stress on your blood vessels. This can help keep both your kidneys and your heart healthy. You may find that a low-salt diet can help make it easier to hit the blood pressure target your doctor gives you.
2. Learn your glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Based on your age, race, sex, and blood level of creatinine (a waste removed by healthy kidneys), your GFR is an estimate of how well your kidneys work. GFR is used to put chronic kidney disease into one of five stages. Finding out that you have loss of kidney function can give you time to get treatment so to protect your kidneys and heart at the same time. In many cases when kidney disease is found early enough kidney failure can be delayed or prevented.
3. Keep your phosphorus in line. If you have kidney disease, your doctor may prescribe phosphate binders for you to take with meals and snacks. These drugs attach to phosphorus molecules like magnets and pull them out of your bodyso you can keep the right balance of calcium and phosphorus. Too much phosphorus can lead to high levels of calcium being deposited in soft tissues such as blood vessels. Taking binders can help keep this from happening.
4. Ask your doctor to test you for anemia. Most people who have some level of kidney problem also have anemia, which can be found with a simple blood test. Sometimes the symptoms of anemiafeeling very tired, weak, or cold all the time; fuzzy thinking; pale skin, lips, gums, and nail beds, etc. These symptoms can come on so slowly that you dont really notice. If you have anemia, getting treatment can give you more energy and help your heart and kidneys.

Forewarned is Forearmed

Knowing that kidney disease and heart disease go hand-in-hand can help you know what to look for. You and your doctor can work together and take action to prevent health problems.

The good news is that both kidney disease and heart disease can be treated to help you stay healthy.

Part 2 of Kidney Disease and Your Heart: The Hidden Link focuses on diabetes.

i Tsagalis G, Zerefos S, Zerefos N. Cardiorenal syndrome at different stages of chronic kidney disease. Int J Artif Organs. 2007 Jul;30(7):654-76

ii Efstratiadis G, Tziomalos K, Mikhailidis DP, Athyros VG, Hatzitolios A. Atherogenesis in renal patients: a model of vascular disease? Curr Vasc Pharmacol. 2008 Apr; 6(2):93-107

iii Damman K, Navis G, Voors AA, Asselbergs FW, Smilde TD, Cleland JG, van Veldhuisen DJ, Hillege HL. Worsening renal function and prognosis in heart failure: systematic review and meta-analysis. J Card Fail. 2007 Oct;13(8):599-608

iv Stenvinkel P, Carrero JJ, Axelsson J, Lindholm B, Heimburger O, Massy Z. Emerging biomarkers for evaluating cardiovascular risk in the chronic kidney disease patient: how do new pieces fit into the uremic puzzle? Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2008, 3:503-521

v http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/yourkidneys/

vi Raizada V, Skipper B, Luo W, Griffith J. Intracardiac and intrarenal renin-angiotensin systems: mechanisms of cardiovascular and renal effects. J Investig Med. 2007 Nov;55(7):341-59

vii ORourke MF, Hashimoto J. Mechanical factors in arterial aging: a clinical perspective. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2007 Jul 3;50(1):1-13

I've had calcifications of the heart valves ect.. I've had two open heart surgeries. I was previously on a statin, and remain on it but at a higher dose. I am also on Coumadin.

Hi PkdLin,
When were you diagnosed with the heart valve calcification? Did you have the valve replaced? Why is it they can't do a kidney transplant? How is your cardio health now? I can't imagine all you have been through and then losing your husband as well. My prayers are with you. You are one exceptional person. I feel better about dialysis, if I ever need to start it, because of your life experience. Thank you for sharing these things with us.
Jessica

Thankyou! For many years I knew that my aortic valve was not working right, and was told eventually they would have to "intervene". After being on dialysis for many years I started having a lot of vague symptoms, especially after my dialysis treatments. I did not feel well at all and my heart was doing "flip flops". In addition there was uncontrollable high bp which had never been an issue for me. All these things kept me running to the emergency room. Eventually I was admitted and after discharge the doc from the hospital called me at home to say I would need surgery. The aortic valve was not working. I had the first open heart surgery and the valve was replaced with a Bovine graft. I chose that because it meant that I would not need to take Coumadin.
Less than two years later I started feeling badly again. I was told I would need additional surgery, and to visit the surgeon to make arrangements. I did not make it that far. One night after a tx. my neighbor took me to the hospital er where the surgery was to be performed. I was admitted and surgery scheduled for a few days later. I was told that there were calcifications and blockage. I'm no saint that's for sure but I've done whatever I can do be healthy, including taking statins and my dose of aspirin, and watching diet ect.. My labs are good for years running. My heart is obviously still beating but it's weakened a lot. They estimate I have less than one third function at this point. It's truly a miracle that I'm still here. The surgeries helped, but they also weaken the heart to an extent. I now have a pacemaker and the two mechanical valves. I am on high doses of Coumadin in addition to a baby aspirin each day. I don't know where we go from here; it's cliche but it truly is "one day at a time". All of this has made me super sensitive about certain things, and more appreciative of what I have. My priorities are different, and for sure my house is not as clean and orderly as it was before. I'm not a strong person, and not unlike a lot of women grew up without much self esteem. I can tell you first hand that when push comes to shove you are much stronger than you could have every imagined!

Lin and everyone else that has replied. Does it make sense to you that a blood clot would only appear in the kidney? I have maintained that a blood clot is a blood clot and that it will travel where ever it wants to, kidneys, heart, liver, panceras, lungs, brain? Am I wrong in this thinking? Or is there something that could trigger a clot from only forming in the kidney and causing such horrific pain? If that were the case, then why wouldn't a doctor perscribe a blood thinner to prevent them from happening again? I am really confused about all of this and really want to help my friend. If it were me, I would insist on taking a blood thinner, but so far he has not recommended anything of the sort for her. Any comments or help in this regard? I'am just dummified at doctor's anyway and what they do?

Lots of love,
Norma..

Mind you, I'm just guessing. If a clot were to form in the kidney it might not travel from site because the veins ect. are too narrow, and too perhaps the pkd cysts compress interior of kidneys, the gloms. I don't know if blood thinners would work on the clot that is already there. Did the doctor use tests to determine there was actually a clot in the kidney, or is he just taking a guess?

Norma,
I'm guessing too...Could one of her kidney cysts have burst, bled and formed a blood clot? Is her doc a nephrologist and familiar with PKD? I had a bleeding cysts burst and that pain was excruciating. I know antibiotics can't always get to an infected cyst so maybe blood thinner can't get to the clot to dissolve it. That is awful to be going through this. Let us know what the doctors continue to do for her. Wow, I feel bad for her.
Jessica

Thanks everyone for your replies. No, the doc's aren't guessing, it truly is a blood clot and she has already had extremely painful surgery to remove it. I have a picture of her back with a tube coming out of her kidney, it looks just awful and she states that she will not never do that again! Now within only a short length of time, it is happening again. I'am not sure if the veins in the kidneys are any more narrow than the heart, do you think that Lin? What could it hurt to put her on a blood thinner and see if they stop forming? I don't know what other recourses are available to her other than having her kidneys removed and we all know the seriousness of that operation. My heart breaks for this girl and I wish I could find some way to help her as her doc's don't seem to be able to help her. Thanks again guys.

love,
Norma...