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Has anyone had thromboembolism? What was your experience?
How was yours diagnosed (what tests)? What symptoms came on?
Has anyone fully recovered?
I ask after taking myself to the E.R. from symptoms that started a week ago of throbbing pain in the veins of my legs, feet, toes, arms, hands, fingers, and a few veins of my chest. The E.R. Doctor refused to do a CT contrast scan of my lungs to rule out pulmonary embolism and only did ultrasounds after I insisted - both of which didn’t show anything (the legs and heart). He did take an EKG and had blood drawn. The EKG appeared normal which I knew it would. I have never had heart problems before.
Meanwhile it has felt like maybe a plaque or blood clot got loose and has been flowing through my body making weird throbbing sensations in all places of my extremities - even the bottom of my feet. I told the Doctor I want to get tests to rule out systemic thromboembolism. He responded saying there is no such thing (to my surprise). This is at a supposed leading hospital in my county.
Any thoughts from others are appreciated. Thanks!
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Hi @zoelife, I see that you are having difficulty finding a diagnosis for your pain and symptoms. Normally, with Venous Thromboembolism (VTE), Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and Pulmonary Embolisms (PE) it can be detected through a simple blood test called D-dimer that can identify clotting of the blood activity. Do you know if your physician ordered that test for you? Are you currently having any other symptoms associated?
Thanks for your reply, Amanda. I don’t happen to see that the Doctor ordered the D-dimer test, though it makes sense that he should have. He did order a Comprehensive Metabolic panel and a full CBC panel. He noted my sodium was high as well as my blood pressure - first 110/98
and then 146/90. Some afterthoughts of mine are maybe it was higher due to ibuprofen I’ve been taking to try to alleviate the sensation of itchy lungs (see below). For that reason I’ll stop taking the ibuprofen and then get my blood pressure checked somewhere to see if it went back to normal.
As to other symptoms, I have had a sensation of slight heartburn on a few occasions (not heartburn from gastric gases or acid getting into the throat) as well as discomfort in the chest (pain in a few blood vessels). I have also had shortness of breath on exertion (when singing, hiking, and on some days when talking I found myself running out of breath mid sentence). No wheezing or coughing associated with it.
I have had other discomfort in my lungs but that is associated with something entirely different- an aspiration event in December that has caused shortness of breath and itchy sensation in my lungs ever sInce. I’ll be getting a bronchoscopy with lavage soon for that to rule out a a fungal infection in my chest. There surely has to be an answer for the constant itchiness inside my lungs since then.