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
Just thought I would comment on the number of 'reasons' I have been given for my continued chest pain nearly 8 months after my PE.
Although it has remained constant always in the same place with the same degree of breathlessness it has been diagnosed by different doctors at different times as;
1) Scar tissue healing
2) Muscle pain
3) Recurring small PEs
4) Anxiety
5) Being overweight!
Last night in desperation I went back to A/E as more breathless and a little freaked out as stopped warfarin last week. Now the X ray shows some 'shadowing' possibly consilidation from infection or could have been there from the start of my PE and is an area of infarction. Which is what I have been trying to tell them all along!
Anyway have some antibiotics and another X ray in 2 weeks. Wonder if they will have yet another diagnosis then. Watch this space......
Kate x
Just thought I would comment on the number of 'reasons' I have been given for my continued chest pain nearly 8 months after my PE.
Although it has remained constant always in the same place with the same degree of breathlessness it has been diagnosed by different doctors at different times as;
1) Scar tissue healing
2) Muscle pain
3) Recurring small PEs
4) Anxiety
5) Being overweight!
Last night in desperation I went back to A/E as more breathless and a little freaked out as stopped warfarin last week. Now the X ray shows some 'shadowing' possibly consilidation from infection or could have been there from the start of my PE and is an area of infarction. Which is what I have been trying to tell them all along!
Anyway have some antibiotics and another X ray in 2 weeks. Wonder if they will have yet another diagnosis then. Watch this space......
Kate x
Of course, going into the ER....they said anxiety and/or panic attack was causing the pain in my chest. When the paramedics gave me nitroglycerin spray in the ambulance.... the pain decreased almost instantly. It also helped that they were giving me oxygen on the ride to the ER. The ER doc said that I was much toooo young (I'm 45) to be having
a heart attack??! Then they said that I must have a bad case of pneumonia after taking a lung x-ray and that's why my chest and lungs hurt. I didn't really have pneumonia, but that was their 1st diagnosis after the x-ray and before the CT scan.
Then, they said that I could be having a bad case of acid reflux (GERD) which can cause pain in your chest.... hence "heart burn". Several months before my PE was diagnosed.... I was having what my primary care doctor thought was chronic bronchitis and they gave me asthma inhalers for my "chest tightness". Now I wonder if I really had any type of asthma, but was waling around with a PE or blood clot forming in my lungs and they just didn't know it?
My hemotologist continues to tell me that the pain I have in my lung and chest is from scar tissue since I had a large area of lung infarction after the PE. This makes the most sense to me.... dead tissue that is stuck in our lungs and needs to go somewhere?
It can be so frustrating and I hope that the doctor's can get all of this figured out as we recover from our PE's..... BTW- since you're off the warfarin you might want to ask for a d-dimer blood test to make sure no clots are going on in your body! :) Keep us posted on your progress and hang in there!
Thanks for replies.
I wasnt on Yaz cupcake but expect if I was it would give them something to blame!
Alexandra you have given another 2 common diagnosis asthma and heartburn! Havent been given those yet but have been given an inhaler that does nothing except raise my heart rate which I dont need!
Wouldnt mind so much if they had said at the beginning wether I had infarcts. It just wasnt commented on the scan report, I am convinced I did as had so many clots but I am no expert of course. Something does seem to be showing on the x ray now and as I dont feel unwell am not convinced it is infection.
Will keep you posted. Perhaps we should do a top 10 of excuses- sorry diagnoses- we have been given!
Kate x
WHat are recurring small PE's? Now that gets me anxious. Two months before my C scan to see my clots that I am sure are gone.
the jump to the recurring PE diagnosis because theres a strong correlation between having one PE and having another later on. i want to say the percentage is something around a third of all PE sufferers have more than one.
it makes sense if you think about it. if youre prone to clotting, youd be prone to having mulitple PEs.
Sorry didnt mean to worry anyone about more small PEs.
It was 2 episodes of pain in the month after my original PEs and my INR was below 2 both times. In the A/E the first 1 was diagnosed as anxiety and the 2nd one muscle pain! Then when I went to an appointment with the chest doctor he spotted the link between these and the low INR. He said they were probably a couple of small PEs because I had them so extensively in the first place,it was in the month following and the INR was low. Kept my INR above 3 after that.
Once again this was only a guess on the doctors part as they are so reluctant to do further scans in the UK.
Hope this sets your minds at rest
Kate
I don't think its clot related. The clot is in my vein. So is the blood from bleeding from my INR getting too high. And why does it make my chest hurt more?
Also does the cold air make anyone else's chest hurt more?