Ever try tonic water–that weird tasting seltzer-like stuff? Supposed to be loaded with quinine or something. I’m going to drink some tonight except I’m going to sex it up and make it a ‘gin and tonic.’ ANyway I get these weird leg pains too and some rheumatologist told me to try that.
To WHYNOT:
Thank you for the time and consideration you put into that. It is very generous of you.
Meanwhile I can’t sit here any longer but I will revisit this.
Meanwhile my tentative dx is–well I call it Tse Tse Fly Disease. But that’s not fair so I’ll look again; it’s hard to remember:
TIETZE’S DISEASE.
Maybe I 9-11 coughed my way into this on top of my chronic pain syndrome.
I’m miserable.
Thanks for listening.
You’re very welcome. I hope you never need it. 
Chances are someone will, sooner or later, so I don’t regret doing it, even though your diagnosis turned out to be something else.
Ooh. The bad news is, I hear that hurts like hell. The good news is, it’s usually self limiting and after 3 months or so of hurts like hell it goes away as mysteriously as it appeared. Here’s hoping yours goes away more quickly than that.
I bet you are. That sucks.
WHYNOT: excellent post!
My story–as short as possible:
You didn’t mention a vena cava filter. I had one inserted after the back of my knee had been hurting on and off for a couple of days and then my leg swelled up. Went to ER and was admitted. Leg elevated. (I had just come off of a severe trauma brain injury a few weeks before so the doc didn’t want to give me Heparin).
After the filter insert and a few days later I was supposed to go home. Took a deep breath and couldn’t catch my breath. Gave me oxygen and rushed me for X-rays and then stuck me in this machine where they could see my lungs as they clamped a breathing mask over my face. Yup, LOADED with clots, or rather PEs (pulmonary embolisms) which probably were there before they put the filter in. Lucky I was still in the hospital.
Then they gave me Heparin (fortunately, didn’t affect my brain). Week later went home and did Lovenox for 6 weeks. 16 years ago. I’m good. 
Oh pretty sure the clots were caused by the previous 18 mos. I had been taking Loestril for heavy menstrual bleeding. Never took it again.
Whew! Yeah, I’m a lucky lady.
Oh yeah, and the hematologist told me that the clots don’t actually leave the lungs, but they flatten out and are not so dangerous.
Mrs. Vorlon had problems the second time she tossed clots—she formed scar tissue over them, thus severely restricting blood flow in the lungs. We realized we were in deep do-do when the head of the lung department at Mass General Hospital told her she was going to San Diego to get her lungs roto-rootered because “we don’t do that surgery on the East Coast”:eek:
She came back with a tshirt with her number on it–436.
I had to get trained on handling LOX for breathing until she healed.
One other bit of information others might find useful: before I became a nurse and learned abot bloot clots, I thought of them a roundish things in a small area of a vein. The truth is they can be and often are, very long, almost entirely filling up a blood vessel in the leg from toes to hip, for instance. Blood clotting is a very complex process, involving many steps and something can go wrong at any one of the steps.
There is also the perfect storm of coagulation, known as Disseminated intravascular coagulation aka DIC
When I was eight years old, I had a bump on the chin in dance class that caused a tiny spot under my jaw just to the right of my chin to start bleeding. A reddish spot had been visible there before the bump. I bled, from the reddish spot, a small but steady stream for more than three days, soaking dozens of bandaids. I was told this was caused by a blood clot, but I can’t find anything substantiating that sort of symptom from a blood clot on the internet.
About two years ago I went to the ER for extreme leg pain and was told I had a heart murmur, much to my surprise. An ultrasound and CT scan showed I had blood clots all throught my veins and lungs, multiple DVT’s in my legs and multiple PE’s in my lungs just threatening the hell out of my life. I even started a thread about it:
So, I just spent about a week in the hospital.
I’m fine now. I even look back on that week in the hospital fondly as the closest thing I’ve had to a vacation in three years.
I am slowly and tentatively circling this thread. I’m doing that because it is too scary. And medical insurance being what it is… dang I may have had thrombosis for years and not know it.
The Hello-I’m The Urgent Care Doctor Who takes your insurance and is open on Saturday Nights guy may have dropped the ball.
A couple of months ago I had to take my kid via ambulance to the ER two blocks away. Price? 1200 bucks.
So I’m going to tippy-toe around this. For now.
OMG! I feel the same way. Things suck so bad that a vinyl mattress, flourescent lights, and a room outside the noisy nurses station looks like a 5-star vacation.
I so ID with you. Thanks. I’m not alone after all.
Wanna be best friends?
So, anybody been through the gallbladder thing?
Copy of mail to neighbor last night for my convenience. Sorry about that.
*Was 5.5 hours at 9-11 clinic today. Went to urgent care guy om 23rd St. the other night. So ten hours in house and 30 hours wondering.
But of course 9-11 doesn’t do gallbladders (they suggested a couple of hours ago that maybe it’s that) and urgent care could give a flying fuck after initial visit (rib chondritis sounds like Tse Tse fly) so here it is Fri holiday wkend Fri night as usual and at 6 pm i find out it maybe is gall bladder ("not my job, we appreciate you being involved in our study of monkeys at ground zero,)
I am bloating like mad. I really need a diuretic to figure out if I should drop everything and go BACK to a fucking ER because of course nobody calls back fridays jewish docs plus holiday weekend Maybe bloating from pain meds.
Ferchrissake if you are home let me know and give me a diuretic because I have 87 other crisis going on without going and sitting in an ER without good cause.
Or just kill me.
SOS. Please advise.*
Gosh, I hope you went to the ER instead of waiting for a neighbor to buy you a diuretic. And what is a 9-11 clinic? Is that for victims of 9-11?
Yes ma’am I was a 9-11 WTC initial responder and was there a few months thereafter. All I want to say about that is that if anybody in the world wants to write the story of what it’s like for female “heroes”… Well I have a hair curler of a story. It’s different for women. Way. I think it should be told for history.
As we were.