Damn, Getting Old Sucks! (Ended up in the ER Last Night w/Blood Clots in my lungs)

[Jer]

So I had to search for this thread, I remembered reading it and I had almost the same experience. About two weeks ago I had a knee scope. All went well and I was feeling good, starting PT. I woke up Friday and felt like I had slept wrong on my back. Throughout the day I had back spasms that got worse each time they hit. By 10:00 that night I was laying in bed and couldn't get the pain to stop. It had spread from my back to my back and abs.

My wife called sitter for the kids and took me to the ER. Between my cycling and three kids I have been in too many ERs. Parkview has the best one I've been in so far. Ultrasound showed a clot in my leg behind the knee, CT scan showed PE in bottom of both lungs. Looks like I'll be on thinners for 6-12 months. The worst part (other than the spasms) were the vampires coming in all night to draw blood, and the shot in my stomach. Every time I would start to fall asleeep some guy wearing nitrile gloves would show up and poke a new hole in me.

Jer- your story is encouraging. I am a very active guy and my biggest fear from the knee scope to the blood clots is the impact to being out and about. Moral of the story, when abdominal and back pain hit a 10 on the scale and the meds are having little to no impact, go get it checked out.

Wow, that's crazy to read. I saw the thread title pop up in the subject line of the email notification and I got a bad feeling. Glad that it appears to have worked out alright for you as this PE crap doesn't always have a happy ending. Reading your words took me right back to that time a few months ago that feels like a life time ago now. I didn't miss too much of a beat in the grand scheme of things and really don't even notice it now other than the occasional blood test to make sure my INR #'s are still within range. I got back to work after only a few days and working out nearly 100% in less than 2 weeks. I try my best to forget about it and move on with whatever normalcy I can muster given the circumstances. Every now and then someone wants to talk about it or it comes up in conversation and I kind of think 'Wow, I'm very fortunate because not everyone is still around to think about how good they have it.' I hope you continue to mend and I look forward to updates about your progress and how this has affected you for the positive. I know I don't take a single day for granted.

[brutal]

So I had to search for this thread, I remembered reading it and I had almost the same experience. About two weeks ago I had a knee scope. All went well and I was feeling good, starting PT. I woke up Friday and felt like I had slept wrong on my back. Throughout the day I had back spasms that got worse each time they hit. By 10:00 that night I was laying in bed and couldn't get the pain to stop. It had spread from my back to my back and abs.

My wife called sitter for the kids and took me to the ER. Between my cycling and three kids I have been in too many ERs. Parkview has the best one I've been in so far. Ultrasound showed a clot in my leg behind the knee, CT scan showed PE in bottom of both lungs. Looks like I'll be on thinners for 6-12 months. The worst part (other than the spasms) were the vampires coming in all night to draw blood, and the shot in my stomach. Every time I would start to fall asleeep some guy wearing nitrile gloves would show up and poke a new hole in me.

Jer- your story is encouraging. I am a very active guy and my biggest fear from the knee scope to the blood clots is the impact to being out and about. Moral of the story, when abdominal and back pain hit a 10 on the scale and the meds are having little to no impact, go get it checked out.

Very surprised they did not have you on IV dosing Heparin.

[theGinsue]

Severe pain sucks to high hell, but I'm glad to hear you got checked out and on treatment before any damage was done.

Go slow for a bit to let things work their course, then ne extra careful for the duration of the blood thinners.