I don't know the actual odds, but it would be very unusual to be throwing clots while on Lovenox.

Let's say, hypothetically, that the clot has broken off and is in your lungs. If it is already in your lungs, you probably won't get any worse. Lungs get smaller and smaller ... the big "pipes" are at the top and the blood vessels get smaller from there until they are the size of capillaries which are so small that only one blood cell at a time can get through.

If your one, tiny clot broke off and got into your lungs, then it is stuck there. The pipes get smaller and it can't travel any further. And, if that is your only clot (which it sounds like it is, since you're on Lovenox, which means that you aren't making new clots), then nothing else will happen. You're not forming new clots. If your one clot did break off and is in your lungs, then the worst has already happened and it didn't kill you and it won't go anywhere else from there. And, also, your treatment would be exactly the same as what you're already doing... taking the Lovenox and just giving your body time to heal.

Clots are deadly mostly when they haven't been diagnosed and when they hit the lungs/heart in bad ways. You've been diagnosed, you're on the meds, and your body is already healing. Now, it is time for you to figure out how to help your mind heal from this. It is clear that you are absolutely reeling.

As RMB said, most likely the clot didn't go to your lungs and all the symptoms you describe are anxiety. At this point, you need to figure out what to do about your anxiety, because it sounds like it is taking over your life and, at worse, could be putting your baby at risk due to unnecessary CT scans and additional medication. I guess, one question to ask would be whether the chest pain improves when you take the Ativan. If it does, then you are likely dealing with anxiety, not a PE. You need to make a plan to deal with the anxiety. Therapy, journaling, meditation, whatever works for you... this is what you should do.

Also, you need to make sure that you are staying hydrated. I got really dizzy, light-headed, and sick (with some funky heart stuff) after my PEs, but it was mostly dehydration and not getting enough electrolytes. I increased my liquid intake and started eating bananas and drinking Gatorade and I was a new girl in just few days. The same may be true for you...You need to make sure that you are taking care of yourself through all this.

It is clear that you are tying yourself in absolute knots over all the "what-ifs." So, you need to stop and take a deep breath and sit down and chill out. You've been diagnosed, you have the correct medication, you are safe. The chances of a PE are almost zilch, but the chances of the anxiety making the next few months hell are pretty high.

I dealt with horrid anxiety after my PEs and I do know how difficult it can be to deal with. It is also going to be easier for a fact-based person such as yourself (and me too, actually) to want to point the finger at some identifiable physical problem (like a PE) then to feel like your own mind is causing physical problems. But anxiety can cause all the things you describe...SOB, chest pain, irregular heart beat. You know your anxiety is high, so take a minute to sit down and try to calm yourself down ... I know it is easier said than done, but its important to realize that you're dealing with more than just a DVT and a pregnancy. You've also got anxiety, which is a third medical issue that can make everything more complicated than it has to be.

Take a deep breath,m try to center yourself, and hang in there. You will start to get better and you will get through this... keep us posted.

I agree with TossNTurn and can add my 2 cents. I was pregnant when I was diagnosed with PE. It took a few months to get back to normal, but the rest of my pregnancy was fine. Then I started having shortness of breath after I gave birth and I got really worried and anxious that I'd had another clot (which gave me even more shortness of breath). But I was already taking Fragmin -- which would have been the exact same treatment if I had a new clot. If worst case scenario you do have a clot in the lungs, you're already getting the treatment. There's not much more to do than rest and let your body heal. I was told the clots get reabsorbed in the body, or your body just learns to work around them. It's really pretty amazing when you think about it. Even though I was scared and anxious, I turned down a CT scan after I gave birth because it would have messed up my breastfeeding (I would have had to stop for 3 days which would have been pretty disruptive) and anyway - what would a CT scan have changed anyway? I was getting the treatment for blood clots. I had to have one CT scan when I was 10 weeks pregnant to diagnose the PE and it's best to avoid those when pregnant. It's amazing what anxiety can physically do to your body. Get outside help if you need to. Do what you need to do to have a healthy pregnancy.

Pregnancy can be a very vulnerable time emotionally and mentally. What you've been through with your DVT could just make everything worse. Hopefully you're able to get some help for your anxiety and you're feeling better.

I agree with the others here. The problem is not a PE, it's anxiety.

Forget about PE, you're already receiving the same treatment you would have for it anyway, even if you had one. For the sake of your baby, please do not try to make this into something it isn't. Remember that everything you feel, your baby can feel too, so when you're letting your anxiety run riot, the baby feels your stress too.

Please remember that pregnancy itself comes with all sorts of discomfort and strange sensations and sometimes even pain. That's a normal pregnancy where everything is perfectly fine. So you have that BESIDES what physical symptoms you're ramping up because of anxiety. And remember that pregnancy could even be partly responsible for your anxiety too. Your hormones are all nuts right now, and that causes sometimes super strange emotions. Many people don't realize that so-called "postpartum depression" can actually happen at any stage of pregnancy, even months before having the baby, because it's caused by the hormonal flux you've got going on. This is just a thought, but if you're spending a lot of time indoors due to the fear over this clot and pain from it, you're also not doing yourself any favors, because vitamin D is super important for maintaining your mental health during pregnancy.

Just to give you an example, though, I've also been extremely anxious over something I have going on in my life lately, and it's been making me feel truly sick this week. I get tight in my chest and feel like I can't breathe, like someone is strangling me around my throat. But I know the problem is anxiety and so I can control it because I know what it is. Now as it happens, I have a heart problem too, I have so many years dealing with that, I can recognize the difference symptoms each causes. But you know what? If I take my heart medicine, it can actually temporarily relieve some of the physical manifestation of the stress, but it doesn't make any sense to treat it that way, because once the medicine wears off, it just all comes back again. My heart is not the problem, anxiety is. I have to treat the anxiety, because that's the thing that's causing it. Treat that, and my body feels better. You need to do the same thing, realize that anxiety is the problem and deal with that, and once you get that under control and stop worrying yourself to death, you're going to feel a lot better. Make sure you're getting enough rest, some outdoor time, and some exercise, those are some non-pharmaceutical ways to work out stress, in addition to things already mentioned.

I did get refreshed on the knowledge that just an SVT or DVT can and does push up the HR. I had DVT return after following advice to discontinue Warfarin a couple days ("just a couple days" so no bridging ordered - mistake) and I picked up fresh acute DVTs on top of old chronic ones. Like you, I got a high HR around 103 bpm rest and 120+ with light activity, with lots of skipped beats. The O2 drop was only to 95% or so. Even with just DVT, the heart is going to work overtime trying to compensate for the impediment of a blood clot, wherever it may be. Some other symptoms, such as intermittent SOB and a feeling of sensitivity to any chill, like air conditioning or night air, had also set in.
None of that was quite as bad as the PE several years ago, but many of the long-familiar DVT/PE symptoms did return. Like you, at the ER CT I got it confirmed that it was only DVT this time, with no evidence of PE, though, again, it sure did feel like PE.
Just as a personal perspective and nothing more, it is possible to get PE-like symptoms when only having a DVT, and indeed the CT scan is the gold standard for finding PE if it is occurring. There is no getting any more certainty than that.
Anxiety level is going to be high for anyone who gets the symptoms of venous clots, and it would be higher if worrying for a child as well as oneself. "Symptoms" of pregnancy will shift as well as you get closer to its conclusion. If in doubt, you can always return to the ER.

So here's my update 5 days later:

My lightheadedness has gotten worse, from a couple times of day to almost constant. About 2 days ago I started getting left rib pain (just under my chest.) it's progressively gotten worse.
The last 24 hours it hurts to take a deep breath. I force myself to, but it definitely hurts.
My hr has gone up. My pulse ox hovers about 96-97.
And the Ativan? It's not taking the pain away. The feeling of doom has definitely increased.

So, I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Every night I remind myself that I'm on the correct treatment regardless, however at the same time I'm worried that this could be more serious and something could actually happen to me regardless of being on Lovenox.
I appreciate the feedback and the tough love approach people have shown. It's just scary not knowing if this clot broke off or not, and I'm kicking myself for not asking for a filter to be placed considering my pregnancy.
Anyone have any thoughts?

Gosh, I hope it doesn't sound like tough love. I think people are just trying to calm your anxiety about your situation.

I don't know what anyone else can really say at this point except that if things are getting worse or your gut is telling you something is wrong, then contact your doctor.

Your pulse ox is in normal range but you do sound very hyper vigilant about your body right now (completely normal by the way) but that could be responsible for a good deal of what you're experiencing. Is it for sure just that,well no one can say anything with a 100% certainty. All I think we can say is that if you feel like something really bad is going on the prudent thing to do then is call your doctor.

Rmb-
A part of me thinks, "what's the point?" In calling the DR. They won't do another CT scan, and my treatment is the same. That's what's frustrating me the most- there is so little I can do right now.

That's true, so I'm not sure what other thoughts we can have on things. I mean, in the end what most people do is ride it out or get persistent with their doctors if something truly in their gut feels wrong.

I would focus on what you can do. So, if you feel like the ativan isn't helping you, that needs to be addressed with your doc. There's no sense taking a medication if it's doing nothing. Also, any possibility some of what you're feeling is side effects from the medication?

I would also try, unless your doc says not to, to start exercising lightly, going out, trying to do things, so you have some distractions.

I'm not trying to be flippant about your situation, at all. But all we can do here is relay our experiences and what we've learned. That's not a substitute for a medical opinion, however. Only a doctor can give you that.

And honestly, I'm not saying don't ask for advice. I didn't mean for that to come across that way if it did. What I'm trying to say is that we just can't always know what's an issue and what is not, but we can convey what we all experienced and what sounds normal to us.

If you're still feeling worse and things aren't improving, the only thing you can do is see your doctor. How long has it been since you started taking warfarin? The only reason I ask is because with treatment, the chances of the clot breaking off is very slim outside the first two weeks, max. But if you're feeling unwell, we can't possibly predict what other thing might be wrong. There are all kinds of weird health problems that can come up in pregnancy, so it might now be PE, but maybe there's something else that needs addressed?

No, the doctor won't (and shouldn't) do another CT, I'm still baffled as to why in the world they did the first one. But the doctor can evaluate you thoroughly for any possible problems, and s/he can do an EKG to see what your heart is doing. An EKG would show if you had a massive clot which was affecting heart function. Or if there's some other cardiac problem present. At this point, I think absolutely you need to see the doctor again, whether or not there's a new physical problem, because obviously if something is physically wrong, then that needs dealt with. If it is emotional, then that needs dealt with. My personal opinion based on things you're describing is that you've read a few things on the internet (including some of the discussions here) and it's not helping you feel any better. Sometimes there is such a thing as too much information. There have been points in my own recovery from PE when I realized that I needed to stay off of this site, so that I wasn't thinking about my blood clots all the time, and I could refocus my energy on something else. I don't know what your day to day is, but if you see the doctor and they still say that you seem fine physically, then I would suggest that you make a conscious effort NOT to think about your clots any more, and find other things to occupy yourself with. My PE came just a month after my baby was born, and while I was in the ICU, I knew I needed to think about something else, so I started crocheting a blanket for my baby. I had learned to do it when I was a little girl, but I never had made anything because I didn't want to sit still long enough to do it. Well, after the PE, I was incapable of doing much else, in fact even the crocheting was physically difficult, if you can imagine! But, rather than thinking about how much I hurt and all the things I couldn't do and get depressed and anxious, I was focusing my whole energy on making that silly blanket. Seriously, it helped me emotionally survive the whole ordeal, and I'm one of the very few people I know who didn't experience much anxiety in the aftermath of my PE. So if the doctor says you're alright, try to trust that and find something to refocus your attention to. I really hope the best for you!

First I want to thank everyone for responding. I appreciate everyone's input and it's your experiences that I'm learning from.
I DO get out- in fact, yesterday I was standing up at a BBQ for a good hour which I'm sure didn't help anything. My 4 year old and I went for a very small hike the other day. This AM I was out and I have dinner plans tonight. I'm not sitting at home pining about this, but I feel like I can come here and he honest with what's on my mind. Yes, I probably have read too much. However reading too much is what got my dx the first time- being persistent and keeping on top of things.
Being aware of things as we all know us a double-edged sword. It's nice pre-dx but after you just wish you could have a glass of wine and relax.
Tomorrow marks 28 days since I've been dx and been on Lovenox. This chest pain could be a number of things- that's why next Wednesday I have an appointment with my cardiologist. Next Friday is my hematologist, and I'll bring up my symptoms then.
And while the Ativan isn't helping the pain, I am able to sleep- so cheers to that.
I didn't mean to make this into such a big deal. I really appreciate the comments. I guess I'm just wrestling with myself on what to do. Should I go back to the ER "just in case" or should I somehow trust that I am on the treatment that will help me? But that involves trusting my body- a body that I feel has failed me. It's a hard lesson for me- but one that I think is necessary.
So that's where I'm at. I'll check in in a few days but I'm out to enjoy the sunshine a bit!

I'll second RMB's suggestion that only a doctor can give qualified advice, but still there is no one like those who are in a similar situation when it comes to having a clue how you feel.
Good for you for getting out and keeping a normal life for yourself.
At least you know people will read what you say here, and will use their best judgment for chiming in with suggestions, insights, or just much-needed empathy. Hoping for the best. :)