I had fairly intense chest pain under the
sternum near the bottom. It started to ease up
about two weeks after being released from
the hospital. It comes back every now and
then. Pain was my only symptom.

Pain was what drove me to the ER (Or, I drove myself). Waned a bit that day, but the first full day in the hospital it was excruciating. 15 on a scale of 1 -10. Only regular doses of dilaudid, synthetic morphine, kept it at bay, and the moment it started wearing off (about 1:45) the pain returned with a vengeance. THen they put me on aself administered drip.

Within 2 days almost all pain was gone

Chris

I had severe pain (like 8/9 out of 10) that lasted for 36 hours about a week before my PE diagnosis. But then during that week leading up to my diagnosis I had no pain at all, just mild SOB and a mild feeling of pressure on my chest.

In the 6 weeks since I got out of the hospital, my pain has been all over the place (mostly 3 or higher, often 9), and almost always worse than when it all started. My doctors think it's weird but not totally abnormal.

I had sever pain. A 10! First it was the catheter from my port that fractured and went to my PA and it was severe chest pains that went to my right shoulder and up my neck and I could not breathe. then three days later, the pain was really just as intense and continued for two weeks. I was coughing up blood, short of breath and the pain was just unbarable until they put me on Fentanyl patches. I was in ICU for four daysm the four days on the floor and seven days in rehab. I have been home now for two weeks and still on pain patches. Without the patches the pain is still unbearable which i am told is from the infarctions.

So anyway, I I had pretty bad pain, it is down to a two in the patches.

I've had PE's three times. The first time I had pain, but I also had gall bladder trouble, and the surgeon that took out my gall bladder says that was "classic gall bladder" pain, so who knows?

The other two times, there was no pain. The reason I went to Urgent Care both times is because I had shortness of breath upon exertion that got worse daily until I could barely walk across the room...but no pain.

Leslie

It started for me with tightness in the chest. Sort of like when you have a bad chest cold. That was Saturday. By Tuesday, i was crying with the pain. I've had four children naturally, so can often deal with pain. My husband dragged me to the doctor's office against my wishes. When I was admitted to the ER, I was also given dilaudud- which made life bearable. As soon as the pain killers wore off, it was intense pain again. It's faded since then...but I'm now two and a half months out and still on painkillers. Tylenol just doesn't take care of the pain. I also had infarctions, so I don't know if that plays into it or not. But I'm alive and that's really the bottom line these days.

I had bottom left and right severe chest and shoulder blades pain two days before PE diagnosis. Then during my 4 days hospital stay for bilateral PE I was injected Heprian. By the day I was discharged from the hospital the pain was almost gone. After getting home 2 weeks or so I started to run which caused the pain come back for a few days. For me the major issue is SOB and chest pressures. Now I was treated for lung infection with antibiotics and the SOB symptoms getting much better.

My PE symptoms did not include pain. I was mostly short of breath and my chest felt tired, like kind of heavy.

I only experienced pain after diagnosis.

I had the worst pain I've ever experienced the morning of. This pain (10) lasted about 4-5 days, and then it became painful (6) on inhalation only, and that lasted about 2 weeks. I'm 10 months out and get some form or another of chest pain (3) almost every day. Some days I get a really sharp cramping feeling (7) that lasts for a few seconds and dissipates.

What interesting lives we live now, huh?

I had been over-sleeping for about a month before I had my PE, and on that day, I remember having sudden sharp pains in my chest that intensified and asphyxiated (or so it felt like!) me to faint. I got back up on my feet, somehow made my way to the nurses' office on campus, but then fainted again. I had no idea what was going on, but I continued to have pain for the rest of the week in the hospital. I guess the worst part was that initial startle - I definately felt like I was on the verge of death.

No pain as the condition developed. Immediately upon release from the hospital I developed stabbing-like pains in the renal area. Later it migrated to the shoulders and neck, and various points in between. It was intense (8-9 on that scale of 10) but was gone in a week.
Others may have had pain in the lead-up, or other variations for how and when it came and how long it lasted.

Worst pain of my life with multiple massive PE's in my left lung and serious lung infarction tissue death. I was actually screaming out loud for hours prior to going to the ER. I'm extremely pain tolerant..had natural childbirth with both children, the second one at home alone, passed kidney stones with no drugs or even any sounds. This pain was off the chart bad. It felt like someone was ripping open my chest with a knife and jumping up and down on my ribs. Every breath was agony, I could barely breath, the pain radiated down my arm and was front and back in my chest, side and ribcage. Not even morphine and eventually dilaudid IV could touch the pain in the hospital. Eventually it went down to about a 9 while in the hospital and on heparin. But i ended up having fentanyl pain patches for around the first month afterwards in order to feel any relief. It then lessened to around a 6 or 7 and only increased if i was overly strenuous in activity. Finally around 3 months it was a dull aching. However my pulmonologist warned that healing lung tissue from infarction can cause a spike in the pain level especially ribcage and chest area. that's exactly what my experience was and i do think it's part of the recovery process. Now several months off warfarin I only have shooting pains if I've overdone it physically. so it definitely does get better!

No pain here. Maybe a heaviness. I just couldn't breathe. I figured it was my body telling me I was too over weight to be as active as I was trying to be. I was going to the gym nearly 5 days a week but stopped a week prior to being diagnosed. But in the end I couldn't walk 10 feet with out having to sit down to keep from passing out because I couldn't breathe. I looked like a fool squatting in the driveway trying bring the trash can back up to the yard.... The breathlessness still comes and goes and when it does I worry... but I never had any pain. If I had a dollar for every time a health professional asked about the pain it would help to pay off a big chunk of the hospital bill. They'd just stand there looking puzzled. But it is what it is.

@Liberada- I get that same puzzled look when I explain that I had no SOB- just pain.

I had shortness of breath....thought maybe I had developed really bad asthma, but couldn't figure out why. I've always had a little bit of asthma and allergies, but didn't know why it was so bad. I had sob for several months....would notice it when I would run on the treadmill...I would just lose my breath and have to stop....it scared me. Also...felt some weird feelings in my left arm. Before this all started had experienced some leg pains after starting Yaz birth control. Never had the trademark swelling of the leg....just pains that I felt like I needed to shake off...would always walk around a lot. The shortness of breath did start to get worse near the time of diagnosis...I remember sitting in a movie theater with my family trying to watch a movie and all I could think about was the fact that I couldn't breathe very well. Right afterwards we went to the pharmacy and I got a humidifier and nasal irrigation system thinking that those things might help. Finally, my pulmonologist sent me in for a CT scan (blood clots was just one of the many things they were checking me for)...I was sent right to the ER following the CT scan....spent the night in the hospital taking lovenox shots and warfarin. It took about a week of taking these medicines before I finally felt what it was like to take a really nice deep breath again...it had been so long I'd forgotten what it was like. I had actually run on the treadmill and played tennis the day before they found the PE....I just ran slower than usual. I am very lucky that they ordered the CT scan.