Hello! my name is Laura and at just age 18 I was diagnosed with a bi-lateral pulmonary embolism.
I had travelled back to my home county of Kent for the Easter holidays from university when I noticed some very mild chest pains.
Being a young girl, this was not taken seriously by my GP at the time. However, later that evening, I developed stabbing like pains in my shoulder, neck and back being completely unable to move from my sofa.
Thinking this was something muscular, my parents took me to A&E where following a blood test and a later CT scan, it was confirmed I had a blood clot in each lung.
This was completely unexpected considering my young age and healthy lifestyle, little did I know that this was a side effect from the combined contraceptive pill.
What is so unusual about my story is that normally people develop a PE from a DVT that started in their calf. This was not the case for me, I didn’t have any other pain or symptoms in my limbs, and I think it is really important that people know this so they don’t ever dismiss any symptoms.
Thankfully, I have now made a full recovery despite some complications such as being re-admitted to hospital following some heart strain. The only long term impact is that I cannot drink too much alcohol at university now I am taking blood thinners!
As Laura explained, a pulmonary embolism (PE), forms after a piece of clot breaks off from a larger clot somewhere else in the body and travels through the blood stream to the lungs. It is very important to know risk factors and signs and symptoms of a PE because you may not have had any, or only very mild symptoms with the DVT.
#ThinkThrombosis #KnowThrombosis
