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.
Hi all. In May 2016 at the age of 60 I got chickenpox. I caught it from my husband's shingles and my daughter and son ages 22 and 16 caught chickenpox also. A month later I started having shortness of breath and pain in shoulders. I probably walked around like this for a month but went to walk-in and chest x-ray showed nothing, EKG was messed up and D-dimer came back positive. Went to hospital CT scan showed bilateral PE and infarction. I spent the night and was given Lovenox shots and sent home next day on Eliquis. I got a referral to a hematolgist and he repeated my scan 3 months after the first one and all was gone, infarction healed, no clots. He said my blood work showed the infection from the chickenpox caused this. I would never have to worry about just regular infections because this was systemic. He checked my blood every 3 months. I had 2 elevated numbers, both an IgM, one was anti beta 2 glycoprotein I IgM. Every 3 months these numbers went down and I was on Eliquis. In July 2017 exactly a year only one number was slightly elevated. I had taken myself off Eliquis to just once a day and then off because this same doctor is also an oncologist treating my husband for lung cancer and he was on Lovelox and started bleeding, so I was upset. The doctor told me I should stay on Eliquis until that number was normal or at least a baby aspirin, which I said I would and he referred me back to family doctor to have blood work done in 3 months which would have been Oct. 2017. My husband died in Aug. 2017 and so I had a lot going on and did not go on baby aspirin or see the doctor. In December I caught an upper respiratory infection treated with antibiotics. In January I could feel the muscle pain from before and started eating different and thinking I need to get healthy. That pain went away. I had a lot of other strange pains and then pain started coming back and shortness of breath. I went to walk-in, EKG fine, chest x-ray showed some fluid at bottom of lung, D-dimer positive, hospital CT scan bilateral PE, segmental and subsegmental. The first time it had said in pulmonary arteries, so I am not sure if this is not as bad, but I have some fluid. Put back on Eliquis. The first time they did Doppler ultrasound of legs and no PE. I never felt any pain in my legs ever. I asked how I got this and they said from my legs. I do not see how. I have an appointment with the family doctor tomorrow. I just went from the 10 mg twice a day to 5 mg twice a day of Eliquis. I have some kind of pain in my shoulder and waist area and even to touch. I know I sit too much and need to lose weight, eat different, but have any of you ever been told your PE was caused by infection? Thank you for allowing me to join.
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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.
Sometimes it’s not one thing that contributes to a clot but a perfect storm of risks going on in your body.
That is a heavy load you are carrying. Do what you can as you can and be gentle with yourself!
I have had repeat PEs without any symptoms to suggest where the clots originally came from. They say it probably came from your leg because that's the place where the clots can form the easiest and break off to travel to your lungs - between blood pooling in your legs over the course of the day, bent knees putting a crimp in your veins to stop the blood flow, and moving around flushing the blood from your veins back up to your heart and lungs, it's the most usual location. Since it was a month before you were checked out the first time any clot that was there may have already broken up and moved to your lungs before you got the ultrasound. It could be from somewhere else in your body but that's where they think most of the clots form.
Have you thought about seeing a hematologist as well as your husband's oncologist now that you've had a second PE?
Good luck with your appointments.
Infection
obesity
not moving enough
kidney function. I listened to a doctor that said if you kidneys were not functioning correctly then your blood can clot easier.
STRESS. I am not sure if it was on this web site or another but somebody was saying their INR would go up and down on Coumadin and found out it was stress. Nothing changed except stress.
I went off Eliquis the end of June and blood work early July showed one number still elevated. My stress? May my husband was bleeding in his brain from Lovenox. He was diagnosed with lung cancer May 2015. We had already spent half of 2015 and all of 2016 dealing with brain surgery, chemo, radiation, seizure, hospital stays, and then early 2017 fell and hit his head and landed on knees, got a blood clot in knee and put on Lovenox and bled in brain. May 2017 second brain surgery, June daughter married and moved out of house. July husband started getting pulmonary effusions. Aug son graduated and husband died. Sept. dealing with money, October son got a full time job and our sleeping and waking scheduled changed. My legs kind of were puffy and I thought lack of sleep. November daughter found out pregnant. I was so sad, depressed over my husband, I knew I had to stop and think of my kids, so kind of had a better attitude and then December had upper airway virus, January found out my job cut our wages. I sit and type from home. I am a medical transcriptionist, so was going to have to sit longer. House needs work, told my son it is his house after I am gone, so think of it as an investment. As soon as I said that I got a letter from Medicaid stating they will take the house after I die for my husband's medical bills and then shortness of breath and back and shoulder pain and PEs second time. I am sorry this is so long. Wondering if others had anything similar or if they see something here that may make them think of how to not let this happen to them again. I had wondered what stress was doing to me.
Good luck.