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.
Hello
I am a 49 female who has enjoyed good health. I was diagnosed with bilateral PE's on March 16th. I didn't have any classic symptoms previously other than an mild cough occasionally with a bit of chest pain and tingling left arm that would only last for a few mins. In February I had been sick with a mild cough and then a really bad cold. I had been diagnosed at a quick care clinic with bronchitis on March 13th and given meds. The bad pain started March 15th in the evening. By 1:00 pm on March 16th I called my husband to take me to the hospital. I spent 11 days in the hospital improving greatly within the first week on Heparin. I was switched to Warfarin and stayed to have my INR levels monitored. I was feeling pretty good except for a lack of energy. During my CT there were some anomalies on my thyroid which was confirmed with a follow up ultrasound. I just went to my GP yesterday and had a full exam. She looked at my echo results, ekg, etc. I got news that has caused me lots of anxiety. She said that one of my valves in my heart showed some hardening and that there was some dead tissue in one of my lungs. She also noticed a change in my right breast from my exam in Feb 2016. I explained that I am still having the twinge of chest pain around my heart and the tingling in my left hand. She gave me nitro spray. I was feeling quite good until yesterday morning but all the real concrete news and the additional news hit me hard. I had a bad panic attack last night for the first time since this happened. I have had left chest pain since yesterday morning but no real tingling on my arm. I don't know if its anxiety or I should be heading to the hospital. I'm stressed out and worried but cannot get the pain of my mind. I don't know why I was feeling so good and then yesterday everything went downhill.
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Look at what my best friend did with my picture!
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We all have 24 hours in a day. How we spend these hours is important. Watching a little bit of a video about how sitting affects us made me aware of how much sitting and laying down I do. Gonna have to work on that.Your turn. Tell me another truth.
You just had a PE 3 weeks ago. You are still healing. It's not at all unusual to feel worse. You're probably up and about doing more while your body is still recovering. It can take a while to feel pretty normal, and you will have good and bad days. Plus the worry adds to the feeling of being unwell.
As far as the dead tissue in the lungs, lot of people get that and they don't even know they have it. I have it and I am fine. I'm not saying it's great to have that, but that you can live a perfectly normal life. Is your doc worried about your heart health? She should refer you to a cardiologist then if she is, in my opinion. I had heart damage after the PE, but it was related to heart pressure, which is common after having large clots. Usually that kind of damage clears up after a while. My heart is completely back to normal. Did she said that the valve issue was from the PE's or did she think it was an pre existing thing?
Anxiety is a bear and it will make any symptoms you have so much worse. and also, sometimes the anxiety symptoms mirror other things, so you can't tell what's causing what or what is what. That is normal too. I struggled with anxiety for a while after my PE, and actually, I was doing ok up until a month after when I had my first panic attack. I think sometimes it's just that your brain is catching up to the severity of the trauma you just went through. I found counseling to be helpful, as well as trying to practice body scan meditations (lot of into out there on that if you google it).
Seriously, there is a lot of two steps forward and one step back (and vice versa) throughout your recovery. You are going to be ok.