Last week I blogged about that time I had pulmonary embolism. My long-time doctors were baffled about it. I was super lucky and blessed that the doctor I was referred to found out what was ailing me. It took two weeks of tests before I was properly diagnosed. It was a huge blood clot that grew over a year. I had been doing a lot of overnight flights that year and that probably made things worse.
When you are diagnosed with pulmonary embolism it's important to know whether it's provoked or unprovoked (the cause). This was undetermined after doing so many tests. I had just finished my medications 9 months later when weird symptoms started showing up. I was having frequent headaches, blurring of vision for a few weeks.
It was another series of ER visits, new doctors until I ended up with an interventional radiologist. I had an angiogram and venogram and it was found I have May Thurner Syndrome. It means I have an artery and vein pushing against each other. This is what caused the clots that eventually found its way up to my lungs.
I probably have it for a long time because my cardiologist through many years always wondered why my calves are always swollen. I would usually tell him I just have thunder thighs and it runs in the family! To fix MTS one is given the option to have a stent placed in the vein. I was super iffy about it and got the second opinion of my cardiovascular surgeon. He did two open heart surgeries on me and so I sought his opinion. He said I shouldn't do it and explained that one should only do these kinds of procedures if your life depended on it and whether it would improve your quality of life.
Pain goes hand in hand with MTS. Swelling is an everyday thing and I have other medical conditions that complicate matters. To this day I follow my allergologist's advise, "Accept things early and be flexible". I believe I will get over this. My doctor reduced my medication already. It's hard because there are good days and bad days. My goal is to go back to the days when I didn't have daily medication (my Mom is 85 and doesn't have any meds and she had medical conditions also in the past).
Here's what I'm doing to work towards my goal -
(1) Physiotherapy
(2) Exercise
(3) Staying positive (meditate!)
(4) Eating properly
(5) Pray
When you are diagnosed with pulmonary embolism it's important to know whether it's provoked or unprovoked (the cause). This was undetermined after doing so many tests. I had just finished my medications 9 months later when weird symptoms started showing up. I was having frequent headaches, blurring of vision for a few weeks.
It was another series of ER visits, new doctors until I ended up with an interventional radiologist. I had an angiogram and venogram and it was found I have May Thurner Syndrome. It means I have an artery and vein pushing against each other. This is what caused the clots that eventually found its way up to my lungs.
I probably have it for a long time because my cardiologist through many years always wondered why my calves are always swollen. I would usually tell him I just have thunder thighs and it runs in the family! To fix MTS one is given the option to have a stent placed in the vein. I was super iffy about it and got the second opinion of my cardiovascular surgeon. He did two open heart surgeries on me and so I sought his opinion. He said I shouldn't do it and explained that one should only do these kinds of procedures if your life depended on it and whether it would improve your quality of life.
Pain goes hand in hand with MTS. Swelling is an everyday thing and I have other medical conditions that complicate matters. To this day I follow my allergologist's advise, "Accept things early and be flexible". I believe I will get over this. My doctor reduced my medication already. It's hard because there are good days and bad days. My goal is to go back to the days when I didn't have daily medication (my Mom is 85 and doesn't have any meds and she had medical conditions also in the past).
Here's what I'm doing to work towards my goal -
(1) Physiotherapy
(2) Exercise
(3) Staying positive (meditate!)
(4) Eating properly
(5) Pray
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