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.
Today I'm completely wiped out. Worked a 16 hour day on Wed and went for a follow-up appointment with the cardiologist yesterday. He's a great doctor and very thorough with this explanations, which I love.
He did say it doesn't usually make sense to be tested for clotting disorders until you are off anticoagulants as they can skew results. I go to a hematologist later this month and we'll see what she says.
Results from my nuclear stress test came back fine. He seems to think the clot came from my fall (not BC use). He decided to do another echo in his office (I had one done during ER visit in June) and a follow-up doppler on my leg to see about DVTs.
No DVTs found. Nothing amiss in my arteries. Blood pressure is very good so no evidence of pulmonary hypertension.
BUT, he thinks they may have found a hole in my heart. They call it a PFO, and it is something that happens at birth whereby the left and right side of your heart don't close up, leaving kind of like a flap. I think he said about 25% of infants have this at birth and then it heals over within a year. But for 1 out of 100 it never closes.
There's a "bubble test" that confirms diagnosis as the echo isn't as accurate. He wants me to come get this done in 6 months. I guess because I'm already on Xarelto, he isn't worried about it right now.
Scary stuff is that the PEs I experienced in June could have easily travelled through the flap (if I do have one) and right to my brain causing a stroke. I'm such an incredibly lucky person. I came home and started bawling my eyes out.
This news has overwhelmed me emotionally. Another thing to worry about. Another ticking time bomb in my body that I can't do much about right now.
This isn't good, but I guess if I do have it, I've had it all my life and never knew. To look at it another way, if i never got the blood clot I may never have found out about this potential defect.
I have no idea what will come next. But I'm shaky today and really tired. I'm losing track of what "normal" is. It isn't a good day. I hope tomorrow will be better. If anyone has experience with PFO, please share what you can.
He did say it doesn't usually make sense to be tested for clotting disorders until you are off anticoagulants as they can skew results. I go to a hematologist later this month and we'll see what she says.
Results from my nuclear stress test came back fine. He seems to think the clot came from my fall (not BC use). He decided to do another echo in his office (I had one done during ER visit in June) and a follow-up doppler on my leg to see about DVTs.
No DVTs found. Nothing amiss in my arteries. Blood pressure is very good so no evidence of pulmonary hypertension.
BUT, he thinks they may have found a hole in my heart. They call it a PFO, and it is something that happens at birth whereby the left and right side of your heart don't close up, leaving kind of like a flap. I think he said about 25% of infants have this at birth and then it heals over within a year. But for 1 out of 100 it never closes.
There's a "bubble test" that confirms diagnosis as the echo isn't as accurate. He wants me to come get this done in 6 months. I guess because I'm already on Xarelto, he isn't worried about it right now.
Scary stuff is that the PEs I experienced in June could have easily travelled through the flap (if I do have one) and right to my brain causing a stroke. I'm such an incredibly lucky person. I came home and started bawling my eyes out.
This news has overwhelmed me emotionally. Another thing to worry about. Another ticking time bomb in my body that I can't do much about right now.
This isn't good, but I guess if I do have it, I've had it all my life and never knew. To look at it another way, if i never got the blood clot I may never have found out about this potential defect.
I have no idea what will come next. But I'm shaky today and really tired. I'm losing track of what "normal" is. It isn't a good day. I hope tomorrow will be better. If anyone has experience with PFO, please share what you can.
It's true that it would've sucked if your clots went to your brain, but it sucked that they went to your lungs too! So suckage of your PE is general.
And since your doc thinks your first episode was caused by a fall, it means you don't have to worry about having clotty blood in general. Which is great news!