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 I'm wondering if you all think it's worth it to get a home tester? I think it might alleviate some of the stress of not knowing. Does anyone have any recommendations of what kind to get?
I've had a CoaguChek for 3-4 years now and really love it--much better than going to the lab. There's also INRatio machines out there.
Personally, I would go with whatever your insurance will cover. Often you can call the tester company and they'll get together with your insurance and tell you what it'll cost you. Mine is basically free, once I pay my deductible each year.
Before that I had a protime 3 meter that I bought on ebay for $150.00 and the strips from the same guy who sold me the meter. He works at a online medical supply store. This was actually cheaper for me to pay my own out of pocket expenses because if I went through insurance, Alere jacks up the price of the meter/strips about 300-400%, so that you have to pay your 20% copay it was way more than just buying it myself. If you want the name of the company I bought my stuff from, private message me and I will give you the details.
I, at first thought about getting the Inratio 2 from alere, but they are no longer selling to medical supply places so they can charge around $25 per strip and the machine is astronomical. You used to be able to get the strips for around $7. Also, they had a big scandal that the strips were defective and so the readings were wrong.
I'm a lifer since 2010 and couldn't stand going to the lab for the draws. It's saved my life because when I have to get off my warfarin, like for a surgery, I test every three days until it gets back in the zone. I hope that helps.
I've used all three machines and the inratio and the coaguchek are the easiest to use. The protime is OK and was the cheapest option, it's just a little clunkier to use.
Good luck.