good post cave

After a period of denial I believe endurance exercise does increase the risk of embolism/dvt. Combination of inflammation, dehydration, low resting pulse etc. I wish they would study this more.

Extensive bilateral emboli with RLL infarction happened to me out of the blue last October with no warning signs. Felt great and was running really well until one evening I noticed terrible back spasms. The fitter you are, the longer it takes you to realize what is going on and it delayed me seeking help. My first symptom was back spasms so I assumed pulled muscle. I only had shortness of breath on heavy exersion for about a week but it progressively got worse until it was nearly constant.

There have been in the past several discussions about athletes and clots on the DVT board, just an FYI.

twebster, I think you'd find that regardless of fitness level, a lot of us put off seeking help because the symptoms of PEs and DVTs often mirror other things or are not significant at first. So I personally don't think that is specific to athletes.

I think most people don't automatically think "blood clot" when symptoms start, especially with the PE. In fact, most people probably didn't have "blood clot" as part of their medical vocabulary to know to even consider if what they are feeling is a blood clot.

The symptoms are often sneaky. I had no idea why I had 2 months of minor shortness of breath, until it all got severe very quickly.

As far as ignoring symptoms: I am a nuclear medicine technologist. I have been doing v/q scans for 22 years. You think I would know I had PE. Nope. Chalked up my sob on exertion to being out of shape due to a knee injury earlier in the year or asthma or anything else. Even managed to ignore the extreme lassitude and fatigue. 4 months into the symptoms, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. At all. And off I went to the ED. But it took panting like a dog to walk three steps (literally) and having my heart beat irregularly and threaten to stop and my consciousness waxing and waning to get me to the doctor.

I think if you are otherwise healthy and not a hypochondriac, most people just generally take a wait and see approach with most things. For me, once I did get checked out, three doctors misdiagnosed me, so that prolonged the situation for a few more weeks until I ended up being rushed to the ER. Sometimes I think it's amazing anyone survives this stuff.

For me, the initial symptom was a stinging ache in the left shoulder, which I automatically linked to a shoulder workout I had the day before.
Doctors in the ER asked if I had a weird pain/soreness in my legs, but I always had that as I run and exercise a lot...

DVT/PE are usually linked to a sedentary lifestyle, but fit people should be aware that it can happen to them as well... and try to listen better to their bodies.

Interesting read. Prior to my diagnosis, i was extremely health and fit. 5'9 172 about 8-9% BF. I lift 4-6 days a week, do some basketball, swim, and bike rides. I was always curious since i didn't fit the regular PE category.

I've never suffered any injuries from my activities other than a car accident i got into, a few weeks back. I am actually looking forward to my genetics testing next month. I hope being active doesnt mean you should have any higher chances of clots than being unhealthy.

I'm sure genetics in different ethnicity play major roles in how different everyone's body work and how they respond. Something science will probably never be able to concretely prove consistantly

The link between clots and athletes appears to be more about endurance type athletes, not just going to the gym and playing sports. I wouldn't consider myself an "athlete" but I'm not sedentary either as I hike, golf,bike ride, etc and still clotted. Sometimes, there isn't rhyme, reason or a known cause.

several resource pages:

http://www.stoptheclot.org/blog/blood-clot-resources-for-athletes.htm

http://patientblog.clotconnect.org/2011/03/02/athletes-and-blood-clots/

http://www.stoptheclot.org/news/article126.htm

This was also an interesting read for me:

http://www.runnersworld.com/health/runners-and-blood-clots-what-you-need-know

Like everyone else, I was blindsided by the PE. With a bit of research, I eventually put the pieces together. I had been an endurance athlete for over 20 years, had unknowingly carried FVL, and had long been driving or flying home after athletic events. There likely were many small thrombotic events that passed unnoticed before a big one came along.
http://www.airhealth.org/athletes.html
http://blog.garymoller.com/2008/01/how-to-prevent-deep-vein-thrombosis-in.html

" Like everyone else, I was blindsided by the PE. With a bit of research, I eventually put the pieces together. I had been an endurance athlete for over 20 years, had unknowingly carried FVL, and had long been driving or flying home after athletic events. There likely were many small thrombotic events that passed unnoticed before a big one came along.
http://www.airhealth.org/athletes.html
http://blog.garymoller.com/2008/01/... "

Echoing the same thing. I've done P90X for years and just recently started teaching it in a gym. I had a very similar experience to you 'More2be' in that, I was having unnoticed thrombotic events until a big one came along.....it's a double-edged sword. Being fit saved my life, but did it also cause a life-threatening event...?

Do you know that being fit saved your life? Many people here aren't athletes and survived their PEs. I think being fit helps with recovery but is there a specific correlation between those who survive and those who don't based on their fitness level?

It is hard to determine if staying fit was a boon or bane. It sure felt great in the healthy years. I still believe that in the overall picture, most people would be better off if they kept fit, but there is the occasional dropped-dead marathon runner who is found to have had some undetected congenital heart defect, or those such as ourselves who had some other hidden susceptibility. We got the bane part on that one. Despite the risks, DVT in distance athletes is sufficiently rare that I had never heard of it within the local athletic community, and became aware of it only after the fact through various online sources. A busy sport-med specialty doctor may see zero diagnosed DVT cases for a long time, but as many as three in an unlucky cluster at the end of an autumn or spring competition season.
You can go for many years seriously believing that whatever does not kill you makes you stronger, then to get hit with something that does neither.

I think you can be healthy and not be an athlete, and it stands to reason if your healthy overall, that's clearly better than to not be healthy in general. I just am not sure that being an athlete makes you more likely to survive a PE. I mean if that were the case most of us non athletes here would have bit the dust.