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.
OK I've been on Coumadin for 6 years now and am on it for life. I've learned that yes you can re-clot while on Coumadin if your not at your specific therapeutic levels with your PT/INR. I've learned that a lot of different medications and foods can and will affect your PT/INR rather quickly and your PT/INR jumps around rather quickly at times. I've learned to eat certain foods in moderation and be consistent. I've learned to drink more water, water is our friend when we are on anti coagulants, it helps reduce leg cramps. I've learned that yes you can still have a life and still work while on Coumadin although sometimes it takes a bit to get back to a semi normal state. I've learned to use more caution when I do the things I enjoy. I've learned to use a helmet when I ride my horses, ATV's or snowmobile's. I've learned to use a thicker Butt pad on the end of my rifle when I hunt, the bruises to my shoulder have decreased considerably since I changed Butt pads. I've learned to tie myself into the tree when I use a tree stand, (That's just plain common safety rules) So knowing all this stuff and knowing I have to use my head when I do anything, why on earth did I think I could shoot my Bow without using an arm guard? NOTE TO SELF: Always use your arm guard when shooting a Bow, especially a 65# compound Bow. It's like getting hit on the inside of your elbow with a sledge hammer. It did however get me to wondering about something though as I was sitting in the ER. OK I understand about injuries to the head, subdural hematomas, and cranial bleeds and internal injuries if you fall or are in a car accident or such traumatic injuries, so what is the issue with other bruising such as hitting your arm with a Bow string. Yes I got a hellacious bruise the size of Texas, and it did swell considerably larger than my arm normally is. But what are the concerns exactly? After discussing this at length with the Doctor in the ER I found that bruising of the sort I just inflicted on myself can cause tissue damage (did not know this). The swelling can and will pinch on nerves causing damage to those nerves and tingling in the arm and fingers. The blood has to go somewhere and usually goes to the place of least resistance (In my case my elbow joint). I had my PT/INR checked while I was in the ER and it was a therapeutic 2.9 but what was weird was my D-Dimer was at 415, I know thats not really high but it was still elevated. When I asked the ER doc about this he informed me that yes it showed I had a clot, which of course the blood is still gonna clot some where we bruise, but since I was therapeutic that wasn't a real issue. Normal D-Dimers are 0-400 so it wasn't elevated much, and was kind of where I expected it to be considering what I had just done. So lessons learned. Wear your silly arm guard when your gonna shoot your Bow, even if all your doing is sighting it in.
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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.
We sometimes just have momentary lapses, you know what I mean? I think we just get distracted and I also think, when you are on warfarin that long, you don't think about it every moment, every time you want to do something. You just do it, and actually, I like feeling that way.
There are some activities for which you need to practice safety, regardless of being on warfarin. Like guns and bows and skiing. Like when riding a bike, you should wear a helmet and proper gear. Before I was on warfarin, I crashed my bike and I had the biggest, ugliest hematoma, about the size of a basket ball on my hip/thigh area. Even now, 4 years later, I have a 4 inch long dent on the outside of my thigh where the end of my handle bar rammed into my hip as a I landed on top of the bike. So yeah, tissue damage is totally a reality when you hurt your body like that. Plus, I was lazy about wearing a helmet back then. I'm so lucky I didn't take a blow to the head.
Things are going to happen to us, accidents, what not. What can we do except try to be more cognizant of our surroundings, taking reasonable safety measures etc. But I don't want to make myself crazy over it either. Balance and common sense I guess.
Don't be hard on yourself. You live life well, Ferr, and when you do that, there's a risk. Things that are fun and fulfilling often have have a risky nature to them. That's often what we like about them.
Hope you're doing ok!
Rachelle
Your common sense approach to the questions and challenges has been inspiring and affirming. Thanks!
I find sometimes now that I "just do it" and throw the caution to the wind. All of us want to be a bit rebellious sometimes and us lifers do it in ways like this.
Good reminder, though. Hope your arm is feeling better now!
But I'm trying not to let Coumadin rule what I do or don't do.