Pulmonary Embolism Support Group
By far the most common form of pulmonary embolism is a thromboembolism, which occurs when a blood clot, generally a venous thrombus, becomes dislodged from its site of formation and embolizes to the arterial blood supply of one of the lungs. Symptoms may include difficulty breathing, pain during breathing, and more rarely circulatory instability and death.
Hi all,
yesterday I went to the lung doctor for my 6-months check-up. One part of it was encouraging, but the other part left me puzzled.
He said that my recovery is going fine and my heart is in perfect conditions. He said my left lung will bear the consequences of the infarction and that I still feel some kind of discomfort/pain probably because some pleural adhesions have formed where the scar tissue is.
He told me that he is almost convinced that my bilateral pulmonary embolism was to blame on my 4-months use of birth control pill.
He suggested that I do not undergo thrombophilia screenings.
This makes me feel uncomfortable and not at peace with myself. I told him I would like to speak with an haematologist first, so he gave me an appointment in the end, but he also told me that the haematologist will probably give me the same answer.
I am a bit concerned about this way of proceeding. I live abroad, but I know that in my home country (Italy) they would have tested me for clotting disorders for sure. My sister is a medical intern and spoke about my case to doctors in her ward, they said it would be the norm cases such as mine.
Plus, my youngest sister was on the same birth control pill and she recently had to go off it because she developed some weird micro circulatory symptoms and lamented something being weird in one of her calfs (she will have an ecography in the next days).
I know that some of you had clots which were blamed on BC. How did your doctors handle your cases?
On one hand I feel like I should trust these healthcare professionals, but on the other hand... this is my life, I want to be as sure as I can about what happens inside of me.
Thank you for reading.
yesterday I went to the lung doctor for my 6-months check-up. One part of it was encouraging, but the other part left me puzzled.
He said that my recovery is going fine and my heart is in perfect conditions. He said my left lung will bear the consequences of the infarction and that I still feel some kind of discomfort/pain probably because some pleural adhesions have formed where the scar tissue is.
He told me that he is almost convinced that my bilateral pulmonary embolism was to blame on my 4-months use of birth control pill.
He suggested that I do not undergo thrombophilia screenings.
This makes me feel uncomfortable and not at peace with myself. I told him I would like to speak with an haematologist first, so he gave me an appointment in the end, but he also told me that the haematologist will probably give me the same answer.
I am a bit concerned about this way of proceeding. I live abroad, but I know that in my home country (Italy) they would have tested me for clotting disorders for sure. My sister is a medical intern and spoke about my case to doctors in her ward, they said it would be the norm cases such as mine.
Plus, my youngest sister was on the same birth control pill and she recently had to go off it because she developed some weird micro circulatory symptoms and lamented something being weird in one of her calfs (she will have an ecography in the next days).
I know that some of you had clots which were blamed on BC. How did your doctors handle your cases?
On one hand I feel like I should trust these healthcare professionals, but on the other hand... this is my life, I want to be as sure as I can about what happens inside of me.
Thank you for reading.
rmb
I've seen it go different ways here when it comes to suspecting BC as the cause: some docs still order the genetic testing and some do not. So I don't think it's necessarily a wrong approach but just a different protocol depending on the doctor. I would just discuss your concerns when you see the hematologist. He may handle it differently.
StephanoodleXD
I was only on my birth control for 19 days, so the fact that I was healthy as a horse and then I developed clots after such a short time was pretty much my explanation. I still had the genetic testing done anyways, and still take baby aspirin now that I'm off of Warfarin. Sometimes it's just the perfect storm of events happening and doctors have different views on what should and shouldn't be done. Mine had no issues with me getting the testing done, although the other doctor in the office is more stingy about that stuff. I agree with rmb and talk with the hematologist to see what they think about it. In the end it's really your decision, I know that my mind is much more peaceful knowing for sure that I have no genetic issues, but it wasn't mandatory and wasn't really brought up by anyone until I asked my doctor about it myself.
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