Anxiety and Stress Forum - I Had Blood Clots

Hello,

just wanted to share my experiences with blood clots.

I was hospitalized for 3 weeks with 3 clots. One behind my knee, one in my inner thigh and one in my groin area (left side). So was my mom about 4 years prior....
September 2003 - I was exercising on the leg press machine at the gym. After I felt abnormally tired and nauseous I stopped and went home. The next day at work, I was coming back from lunch walking up the stairs and I experienced a tinged of pain in my inner thigh/groin area. I thought I must have pulled something and tried to sit down at my desk for the rest of the day thinking that would help. The next time I got up and walked down the hallway to my bosses office, the pain came back. Wasn't horrible pain, but enough to let me know somethings wrong. I left an hour early that day to go rest and put my feet up thinking I had did something wrong on that leg press machine at the gym.

The next day it still was tender and so I called my doctor and went in to be seen. The doctor did a x-ray of my leg and it "showed nothing".... I went home with some prednisome that my doctor had given me because I have lupus and he thought that it might be a flare.... The next day my leg began to hurt a little more and get a little heavier. As the day progressed, my leg became very swollen and I could hardly bend or straighten it out fully. By that evening my leg was twice it's normal size. I was hopping and I hopped into the er. In the er an ultrasound was done and the 3 clots were detected. I was in there for 3 weeks and I suffered through a staff infection, bed sores, lost 40 pounds - literally went through hell!!! But that's another story..... The doctor assured me that there was no need to do a follow-up ultrasound once I left the hospital.
I stayed on blood thinners up to my next episode.

A year later - august 2004 - the second bought with clots. I was hospitalized for 2 weeks.... How it began: I kept feeling a little pain in my inner thigh. Similar to where I had a clot before. No swelling at all just tenderness in that one spot. I went in to see my doctor and he sent me to have an ultrasound done. More clots were detected (old and new ones)!!!! They were described to me as a "string" of clots.... I had been on the blood thinners for a year and had normal pt/inr tests every month. What made this time so odd was that I was in no way near as much pain as I was in the first time and there was no swelling at all unless in was hidden under the layer of fat that I packed on from taking prednisome. Just a little tenderness and pain and it wasn't constant either.

After the last episode the doctor's decided that keeping my pt/inr level at 2 was not sufficient and so they now keep it at 3. I have been told that I would have to remain on coumadin for the rest of my life (i am currently 31) since I had two incidents. Although, I feel that I have technically had one incident since the old clots were still there with new ones the second time around. Strangely enough I am having some pain and tenderness in my thigh right now, but an ultrasound was done this past weekend and did nto detect any clots, only swollen nodes.....

Two things I learned from my experiences and want to share with others:

1. X-rays don't work in detecting clots

2. Follow-up ultrasounds are needed to make sure that the clots are
dissolving (even if you are on blood thinners and have been for a while)

has anyone ever had any similar experiences or heard of such a case? Or am I just special? Can lupus effect the blood in such a way to make it clot more and make it resistent to blood thinners?

I Had Blood Clots - Twice