Do they just cut them out or something?
Waiting on whether I have one in my lung or not. The doc I saw last night didn’t realize the one blood test sent to the lab isn’t processed over the weekend. A “D-Dimer.”
Hurts like hell.
:eek:
I’m going back to bed.
Usually clot-busting drugs do the trick.
I have a clot in my leg and take Coumadin - also known as rat poison and possibly the drug used to kill Stalin. But once the medicine did its trick I can’t tell I have a clot - I do most of the same activities I did before. There are worse things to deal with.
Hmmm, does the pain feel like a burning hot knitting needle being cranked around in your chest when you breath deep or move more than a 1/4 inch?
I was on fragmin injections for about 2 weeks before the cumadin kicked in.
It takes a few months for your body to naturally dissolve the clots. Then at least a few more months before the anti coagulation folks will take you off of it. I’m gonna go see my doctor now that it’s been 6 months to stop the cumadin (I hope).
Oh yeah - I forgot about the Lovenox injections in my stomach at the start. Good Times…
Since the OP is asking about personal experiences, this is best suited to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
But I take my baby aspirin every night.
Sigh.
Well, at least I don’t have to worry about being missed here. 
How about apple cider vinegar? Huh? Huh?
Maybe I’ll tell them to take the damn lung. I’m sick of being sick.
And they can’t just cut them out like a tumour?
Well the jury is still out but this Oxycodone ain’t doing squat. I switched to beer. It’s actually better.
Well I haven’t been diagnosed with a blood clot yet. Perhaps I should have asked, *what is a blood clot and does it hurt *and feel stupid for simply not going to Wiki or something? Why have a factual board when people can just google (I hate that word) the answer?
OK. In my humble opinion does anybody here no anything about blood clots?
In your humble opinion you mean? But why would you get tummy shots? Is that where it was?
(Ducking and weaving.)
I had a DVT (deep vein thrombosis)(blood clot) in my leg some time ago. Everyone was surprised that I had no pain with it - symptoms were swelling of calf and ankle & pinkness. This happened after I had been on aspirin for years. I imagine a clot in the lung would be more difficult. I thought I had a relapse a few weeks ago, and the hospital called in a tech to do an ultrasound at night, no clot. I did the Lovenox myself. There was no pain then, either. The shots are in the abdomen because they must be into fat and not muscle. A retired doctor wondered why they didn’t just open the leg and tie a knot in the vein. I think the modern way is better!
Mrs. Vorlon had had clots in her lungs 3 times.:eek:
First time might have been BC related, Second was pregnancy related and the third time the rat poison stopped working. If noone had told you, Coumadin is a art, not a science. The correct dose one week will have your eyeballs bleeding the next—and like the Queen Mary, it takes a while (min 72 hours) to turn anything around.
Lovenox is now generic, but as a word to the wise, the pre-filled syringes do NOT fit in drug store sharps containers. If you are on it for a while, hit Amazon or Ebay for a industrial szed one.
Hope you have good insurance–a 90 day supply of the generic Lovenox runs north of $22,000.00
I ain’t no doc, but when I had blood clots (following surgery, in my legs and lungs), they basically put me on blood thinners (cumadin and/or lovenox, but I had a horrible allergic reaction to the lovenox) to prevent future from occurring, and let the body heal itself (eroding away the existing clots.)
I was actually hospitalized for a few days while they waited for the cumadin to take effect, but then wound up being re-hospitalized for a week because of the lovenox reaction.
My brother in law has one which they can’t treat with blood thinners. They put filters in so that if it gets loose it won’t kill him. He has terminal cancer and the chemo has wrecked his body’s ability to do anything well, so he isn’t clotting, so they gave him platelets to help clot after three surgeries to get his kidneys to kick back in, and he clotted in his leg.
I’m about to summarize what I usually teach over 8 1 hour nursing visits, so yeah, this is going to be a long post.
A blood clot happens when any one of a number of things goes wrong with the clotting system in your blood.
A blot clot is a scab, like when you skin your knee, only it’s inside you and usually a lot smaller. We want blood to clot sometimes, like when you get cut. We don’t want it to clot other times, like when it’s still all inside your blood vessel. We don’t want it to clot there because it runs the risk of being pushed along with the flowing blood until it reaches a teeny tiny blood vessel where it won’t fit, and it blocks the vessel like a cork in a bottle. Then whatever is downstream of that block doesn’t get blood supply, and lacks oxygen and stews in its own waste products.
If the clot is just sitting there stuck to the blood vessel wall, it’s called a thrombus. The condition or action of having a body which makes a thrombus is called thrombosis. If it happens in a big vein in your leg (where they often start), it’s called deep vein thrombosis.
Once it starts to move, the clot is called an embolus. If it gets stuck somewhere, that’s called an embolism. Often people refer to it as a thromboembolism, and I refrain from whacking them with sticks because I love humanity. Thromboembolism is more properly the condition of thrombosis + embolism. Don’t worry about it, you don’t need to know that part.
If the embolus gets swept along until it gets stuck in a blood vessel going to your brain, you can have a stroke. If it gets swept along until is gets stuck in a blood vessel going to your heart, you can have a heart attack. If it gets swept along until it gets stuck in a blood vessel going to your lungs, you can have a pulmonary embolism. These are all Bad Things. And yes, they can all hurt. They can also all not hurt. Pain is not a good way to diagnose a thrombus or an embolus, but it does often tell us where we need to start looking.
A thrombus/embolus can sometimes be diagnosed by using a kind of ultrasound called a Doppler ultrasound. Painless and non invasive, but it doesn’t “see” all of them. Sometimes they use contrast dyes injected into the vein and then x-rays or CT scans - this won’t let you see a thrombus/embolus itself, but it will let you see where blood is being blocked and not getting through anymore.
There are a lot of steps involved in making clots, and any one of them can go wonky and create inappropriate clots. If your doctors know which step in the process is acting up, they can choose which drug to give you, because the drugs work on different steps in the process. But most of the time, they don’t know exactly which step is broken, and they don’t care. There are four common tried-and-true and one new and exciting drugs which work on almost everyone. All of them require some amount of dose fiddling to make sure you’re not likely to get a clot you don’t want, while still being able to make a clot when you do need one and don’t suffer excessive bleeding.
Aspirin. We’ve all heard about low dose aspirin therapy. Some people get put on full dose aspirin therapy. Aspirin inhibits platelets from sticking together, which is one of the steps in clot formation. There is no antidote to aspirin if you take too much and start bleeding.
Plavix. Plavix also inhibits platelets from sticking together, but it does it slightly differently than aspirin. Plavix has an unfortunate side effect of killing white blood cells, so it can make you more likely to get infections or have trouble fighting off infections. It also interacts with a ton of other drugs. There is no antidote to Plavix if you take too much and start bleeding.
Heparin/low-molecular weight heparin/Lovenox. This is an injection into the subcutaneous tissue (the fat) under the skin. It’s usually given in the stomach, but it can also be given in the back of the arm, the thigh, the shoulder…anywhere you can give insulin, you can give heparin. Heparin blocks something called thrombin, another step in clot formation. There is an antidote to heparin if you take too much and start bleeding.
**Coumadin **(brand name)/**warfarin **(generic). Warfarin blocks Vitamin K, which is needed to make several different clotting factors, another step in clot formation. It’s taken by mouth, and takes several days to kick in. While you’re on it, you need frequent testing (as much as twice a week for the first month or two, and monthly once your body gets used to it) to test how long it takes your blood to clot when compared to someone not on warfarin. This test is called a PT/INR, or just INR. If your INR is too low, you need more warfarin and you’re at risk for a clot. If the INR is too high, you need less warfarin, and you’re at risk for a bleed. Vitamin K in your diet can affect the dose you need. They used to tell people to avoid Vitamin K if you’re on warfarin, but now they suggest simply keeping your diet consistent in the level of Vitamin K week to week. If you eat leafy greens, eat about the same amount of leafy greens/bananas/other foods high in Vit K every week, and they can match the dose of warfarin to the amount of Vitamin K in your diet. What you don’t want to do is eat no leafy greens this week and go on a collards binge next week. The extra Vitamin K won’t be blocked by your warfarin dose, and you may develop a clot. There is an antidote to coumadin if you take too much and start bleeding. (I have an 8 week lesson plan just on warfarin therapy, but this will do for now.)
Pradaxa. This is the new and exciting one. It works by inhibiting thrombin directly. It doesn’t require frequent blood tests, you can eat all the Vitamin K you want and it’s an oral drug. There is no antidote to Pradaxa if you take too much and start bleeding.
Because all of the oral drugs take a few days to reach effective levels in your body, doctors often order heparin/lmw heparin/Lovenox right away while you start taking one of the oral meds, and then take you off of it when the oral medication is working. This is called “Bridge Therapy” or “Bridging” for short. Later on if you need surgery, or even extensive dental work, your doctor will tell you when to stop taking your oral medication a few days before (if possible) and may want to “Bridge you” with heparin until a few days after the surgery when you can resume your oral medication. This provides the best protection against clots, while also providing the best prevention of excessive bleeding during or just after surgery.
So, if you have a clot, you need to be under a doctor’s care (which is sounds like you are) and you need to take your medication as directed and make sure you understand the risks (bleeding) and benefits (fewer clots) and when to stop taking it (when your doctor tells you to.) You also need to tell every medical professional you ever see - doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, paramedics - that you’re on anticlotting therapy, because it’s really, really important that they know that.
Whew! Any questions? 
The downside of Pradaxa is that it is damn expensive. I’m on warfarin and have my INR checked every month. They asked me if I wanted to change, but warfarin is cheap, I’m very stable, and the clinic is on my way to work. The test only takes a few minutes. I can see Pradaxa being worth it if you lived 100 miles from the nearest doctor or something, but you can buy a machine to check your own INR for not that much.
Beware of clots. My father had one in 1962 and he was in the hospital for months. This was long before modern treatment though, and he lived for another 49 years. My son-in-law’s father had one, undiagnosed, in his leg. It killed him.
I’m on warfarin for AFib - as a preventative measure. No problems so far.
Well I’m not gonna try to get scientific since WhyNot did such an awesome job.
When my boyfriend had a pulmonary embolism in October 2010, we thought it was a heart attack. He had all the stereotypical male heart attack symptoms. But, all the tests they ran on his heart were fine. A blood test showed the possibility of clotting. He had a CT scan and another with contrast. I believe he had an ultrasound. They were mostly concerned with checking to see if he had an embolism in his legs, which he didn’t.
They started him on Coumadin but it took a long time (over a week) to get to therapeutic levels so they also had him on Lovenox shots (which is how I found out I am incapable of watching someone give themselves a shot in the stomach - I had to be banned from the room whenever he did it). The shots lasted over a week and then he was on warfarin (Coumadin) for 14 months. Last December he finally started showing normal clotting times so they put him on daily 325mg of Aspirin instead of warfarin. He still gets his clotting times checked every few months just to be on the safe side and if he starts having strange pains or abnormal bruising, I’m supposed to rush him to his doctor’s office or the ER.
No one has the slightest clue why he suddenly developed a clotting problem. Every tests they ran was totally normal, except the clotting times.
Well, I was just chatting via email with Cynyc, and she is convinced it is not a clot, so we can only hope she gets it sorted out. Feeling crappy is no fun. 
I get random bone pain in my long bones still from the whole parathyroid thing, and previously the occasional muscle pain until I got off statins. Mystery pains are no fun.
I’m surprised the lab doesn’t run D-dimers over the weekend. It’s a pretty straightforward test, run by most coagulation analyzers these days. Where I was working, in a community hospital lab, D-Dimers were done as they came in from the ER or the floors, no waiting to batch them or anything. Where were your labs sent?
The test is looking for a specific molecule that is only present in the blood when your body has begun breaking down a fibrin clot. The way I understand it, a negative result is a pretty clear indication that there’s no clotting activity going on and the patient is not likely to be suffering a pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, the two conditions this test is usually looking for. A positive result doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a clot, though, because many other conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, pregnancy) can cause an elevated result. The test is usually for ruling out thrombosis, not for diagnosing it.
THAT is awesome! Thank you! I always wondered why the diagnosis was made and treated for sometimes even if they couldn’t find a clot by imaging. Dang, science is cool…
This is interesting. I did have two similar episodes but assumed it was a “superficial phlebitis” since that was a frame of reference when like I was 17. I’m glad, so to speak, that I started this thread.
I thought I’ve seen it all so subtract 1 from from my sig.
Hm. A hundred years ago I saw a homeopath who gave me something that I had to inject in my belly for the same reason. I didn’t love it but it wasn’t anything to faint over.
Oh, and that retired doc? I would of jumped at that. It is essentially what they do for cosmetic varicose vein treatment.