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Originally Posted by Sightseek
So for a little over a week I had been having calf pain in one leg and thought (hoped) it might just be a combination of riding and weight training that was bothering me, but yesterday I was getting nervous because it definitely didn't feel like a muscular issue and I had blood clots in that same leg once before following knee surgery. So I go to bed, wake up this morning and there was zero question in my mind when I stood up what the problem was.
So I go to my primary care physician (because you can't breathe near another doctor's office without a referral) and they refer me to get vein dopler done later in the afternoon at a specialist's office. They do their thing (which is actually pretty cool because you can both see and hear the blood in your veins) and tell me I should go to the ER. It's 4pm. I go to the ER, sit in the waiting room until 7:30 a doctor sees me and goes over the report sent over by the specialist and tells me that they don't want to treat me, but would rather see how it progresses and then determine in a few days whether to treat me or not, but would be happy to prescribe me pain medicine (WTF were talking about bloodclots here not a sprained wrist?!?!). So I essentially say I am not comfortable with that decision and he really needs to get a second opinion. So they do their own test, bloodwork etc. and the doctor comes back and says that I did actually have a very serious clot and that they are going to continue treatment.
What if I hadn't spoken up and just went home?!  |
DVT or Deep Venous Thrombosis of a leg is treated with anticoagulants when:
1) It occurs above the knee because of the chance of the clot embolizing (breaking off) and causing a pulmonary embolus which is a much more serious problem
2) You have a history of previous clots and have evidence of a clot on doppler
In truth without the previous study to compare it to there is no way of knowing whether this clot has changed at all
In your case if this truly is a second clot in this location you should be anticoagulated for life. In addition you should have a workup for hypercoagulable state to see if there is another reason why you are clotting. There are newer approaches to the clot where vascular surgeons are trying to remove the clot and shorten the period of anticoagulation. GL with this...