fluffy rambles: Clot II: The Sequel

Clot II: The Sequel

May 12, 2020 12:44 PM (3 years ago)

Back in November 2017 I had a clot in my leg that turned into a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. Fortunately it was a pretty mild one, so I’d have only died a little bit. Anyway, after that I was on warfarin for 6 months and then have been hyper-vigilant about leg pain ever since.

About a year ago I had leg pain for a while that felt like it could be another clot, so I went to urgent care and got a sonogram; they found nothing and said it was probably just fibromyalgia playing tricks on me.

Anyway, about a week ago I started having familiar leg pain again, but what with COVID-19 shutdowns it wasn’t particularly easy to find options for getting it diagnosed. It wasn’t getting any worse but it also wasn’t getting any better, so yesterday I asked my doctor, who had me come in for an in-person diagnosis, and the doctor who saw me was concerned enough to schedule a sonogram for me.

I just had that sonogram, and there is indeed another clot. But! It’s pretty benign.

The last one was in a major circulatory vein, where it poses a great risk of pulmonary embolism (which it, um, did), but this one’s just in my musculature, and is pretty small. For most people it wouldn’t even be treated, but because of my past history they’re going with an abundance of caution and I’m going to be put on anticoagulants again.

Hopefully this time it’ll be one of the anticoagulant treatments which doesn’t require constant monitoring; warfarin is effective, but also has to be managed very carefully to avoid internal hemmorrhaging as well as incredible vigilance regarding, like, clumsiness and whatever.

Interestingly enough, the first DVT is still visible on the sonogram; even after two and a half years the vein is still somewhat enlarged. Apparently age is a factor in this. It makes sense that the vein would have been stretched out though. I’m just surprised the ultrasound tech could still see it so clearly.

Anyway. I’m glad I got it checked out, and am not too worried about the prognosis for the future. But I guess this stuff’s just gonna be a factor for a long time, huh.