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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What impact does family history have?

CeallachKnits
CeallachKnits
I found out today that my father's sister had a PE a few years ago.

Uncle: I am pretty sure it was clots in the lungs and she had to be on coumadin and then reacted badly to it.

Which I think means that my idiopathic PE now have a risk factor we did not know about.

What's that mean?
TossNTurn
TossNTurn
I don't know what it means. Really a good question for a doc. I think docs usually ask about family history because it is the "short and easy" way to find out if there might be a genetic component. It can make the search for a "cause" much faster.

OTOH, just because two people in the same family clot doesn't mean they clotted for the same reason. Might not mean anything conclusive at all.
deleted_user
deleted_user
My Aunt had PEs, so did I, so I pushed for genetic testing. All came back negative. The only 2 tests remaining are both aquired, so it seems it is either a coincidence or a genetic reaction to hormonal substances. No more hormones for me, not taking the chance!
rmb
rmb
I clotted twice. My brother had a DVT a couple of years after me. No known genetic clotting factors in either of us. I'm on warfarin for life. He was on it only for a year I think. Actually I need to ask him if he's still on it. I think they were going to talk about it given my history.

Like Toss said, it can mean nothing conclusive. My brother's was from surgery on his shoulder, they think. Mine was from god knows what. Could be that both of us just like to hypercoagulate.
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