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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Posts like this freak me out.....

cjmenjou
cjmenjou
I am on a triathlon web forum, and someone posted this in the injuries section. Man, can anyone relate?

it's really hard for me not to be alarmist about these things when people talk about their symptoms, I hope I don't come off this way to them. But given the consequences.

I just heard of another friend of a friend triathlete that qualified for Kona last year (i.e., FAST) who just got PEs.

Anyway, I expressed in the strongest possible terms (without trying to freak them out) that they get a D dimer ASAP, or get the doc on the PE page.....
____________________________________

OK, so a few months ago, during the winter, I noticed it was hard for me to breath when I was working out (doing p90 or running). So I went to see my doctor, and he said it could possibly be asthma. He gave me an inhaler and sent me to have a pulmonary function study done.

Pulmonary function study came back, in his words, "better than perfect." OK, so it isn't the lungs.

I didn't think much of it, things weren't too terribly bad, until April. Then I started getting short of breath just coming up stairs (which I have to do often). I toughed it out through the Marathon, but it sucked and I could barely breath at some points. I am having real issues now with my running...like I'm training more, eating better, and running slower. No improvement. None.

So I called the doctor, he sent me for an echocardiogram (like a sonogram of your heart). That came back "perfect". OK, so it isn't my heart.

So what the heck? What can be wrong with me? Am I just fat and slow and destined to be slow? I know for sure I'm not making this up, it is really hard for me to breath at times, it feels like someone is squeezing me in a hug too tightly. I'm starting to get the feeling that my doc doesn't believe me because of the testing results.

Do I seek out a sports doc? What do I say? I don't even know what other tests I should be looking for? Help?
cjmenjou
cjmenjou
Meant to add... it's the "someone is squeezing me like they're hugging too tightly" is what got me, since those were my exact symptoms
deleted_user
deleted_user
That is scary! I have a friend who had a c-section June 21st. She has the same doctor I do..well, anyway, I told her to be sure to get up and walk around etc...The other day she said breathing is painful etc..I told her she needed to call the doc. So, today she tells me that the doc wants a CT scan done and she doesnt understand why. I didnt want to tell her that she may be facing the same thing I am but I did encourage her to get it done ASAP
deleted_user
deleted_user
CJ..sounds like you are in a good position to give him some advice!

Most healthy althetes have no clue that something like this could be happening to them. They feel they are bomb proof (me 6 months ago).

:)

Robert
More2be
More2be
You've seen my posts in Runner's World. I hope between the two of us we are informing the at-risk in as gentle but effective terms as possible. I try to include a link or two such as the athletes-specific one from airhealth.org, prior RW PE posts, or one from the many sports med pages that treat the subject as it applies to distance athletes. There is more good to be done in saving lives than there is harm in unintentionally scaring people a little. Personally, had I got the idea of PE while the breath was just starting to run short, I would have been relieved to know what it might be and that I could do something about it, however inconvenient that something may be.
rmb
rmb
Yeah, you don't want to come across as a fear monger but geez, it's not normal to be out of breath as this person describes, whether it's a PE or something else. I think suggesing a d-dimer and ct scan based on his asking for advice is completely appropriate. To me, there is no reason a healthy person, particularly an athlete, should be that winded, right?
TossNTurn
TossNTurn
Man, I hope he got it checked out. Freaks me out too!
rmb
rmb
I just thought of this because I'm going through it right now. Some GI issues can make you feel short of breath (gastritis, acid reflux, etc). Seriously, there are days where I think, ok, AM I having a PE?? And I'm on warfarin and really no longer freaked out by much, except there are times where for a moment, I immediatley go to PE land. Hard not too.

Speaking of getting freaked out, I was reading the obits in the paper this morning and there was a picture of a guy and it said, passed away on such and such a date suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. Breaks my heart.
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