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.

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Chronic Low o2

MikeBowen
MikeBowen
Hello all,

Has anyone had problems with chronic low O2 causing fatique and problems concentrating? At work I tend to get confused easily and my thinking process - for simple troubleshooting items) seems to be totally out the window.

Mike
TossNTurn
TossNTurn
Out of curiosity ... how do you know it is chronic low O2? I get those symptoms for a lot of reasons, but my O2 stats are fine.
deleted_user
deleted_user
I had fatigue, confusion and trouble concentrating while on warfarin. Cleared up after I got off warfarin. Never knew of a problem with my O2 stats.
MikeBowen
MikeBowen
Not sure if it would qualify for chronic (6 months or more) as of yet. However, some people at work have noticed that my face does appear pale at times, but my O2 level is still in the acceptable range. Yesterday at work we took a rather lengthy walk and one person commented I was looking pale. Felt fine. Got back to work and I when I took my O2 it was 97%. Mentioned to my pulmonologist about the pale look at times and she is concerned about it.

After my last hospital visits I did a follow up with my pulmonologist and she ordered 2 tests. One was a leg ultrasound - making sure I don't have a DVT - and a bubble echo - looking for a shunt.

The echo for the DVT showed no DVT but did show a cyst with debris in it in the back of my right knee. We had the same test in January and it was normal. Probably 10 years ago about the time I developed arthritis I had bilateral knee x-rays and an MRI of one knee (right I think). Other than a baker's cyst it was normal. That is probably an incidental finding.

The bubble echo showed no shunt. A shunt is a "short circuit" between the arteries and the veins. It can be in the lungs or between the sides of the heart. This is done by injecting a shaken saline solution into the veins. Under normal circumstances the bubbles are filtered out in the lungs. There is trace grade tricuspid regurgitation. That means that blood is going backwards when the lower chamber empties. There was also mild pulmonary hypertension.

My thought is that the pulmonary hypertension may be causing the regurgitation.

Mike