Serena Williams recovering from pulmonary embolism

[MacMadame]

It can also be an increased risk to "healthy and fit" young women who use birth control pills

That's how I got mine.

[nuge]

I had a PE when I was pregnant with my second child in the eighth month at 32 years old.Never smoked never used the pill .I had no pains in legs or anything just a really bad chesty cough' which my doctor gave me simple linctus It was only when I went for a check up and I by then had developed a sharp pain under my breast .Was then put on heparin and then on to Warfarin after the birth for six months.

[LilJen]

Yup, clotting issues are more common during pregnancy--as the body is doing everything it can to preserve that placenta for the baby and thus tends to fall on the side of more clotting.

[MacMadame]

Which is why I had to take heparin while pg with my second as a precaution. I wasn't too happy about it, but it's better than being dead.

[sk8pics]

Having a PE is a scary, scary thing, as some of you know first hand. I ended up with one in each lung when I was recovering from breaking my ankle. Two pieces broke off from a giant clot that ran from knee to ankle in the leg with the broken ankle. Spent 5 days in the hospital on a cardiac monitor in a step down unit. After 3 months on coumadin the followup ultrasound showed the clot in my leg was completely gone but they made me stay on coumadin for 3 more months to be sure. Afterwards, they did lots of testing to see why this had happened and everything was negative, so it had to be due to the inactivity and the fact that I was not allowed to bear any weight on that leg.

I didn't notice any particular fatique but I did develop pleurisy afterwards. That sounded a bit like "you have bubonic plague" to me but it was actually a good thing, as it was my body reacting to the inflammation caused by one of the clots. I only knew it wasn't too serious because, even though I had pains in my back and chest, I could still breathe, and when I first got the PE's I couldn't breathe. Very scary.

Bostonfan, did they ever do any genetic testing to see if they could pinpoint the exact cause of your clots? You're lucky that it manifested in such a way that it caused you to get medical help. That was true for me, too.

[Bostonfan]

Bostonfan, did they ever do any genetic testing to see if they could pinpoint the exact cause of your clots?

Yes. They called it a protein S Deficiency. 3 of my 5 siblings tested positive for it.

[sk8pics]

Good that they know for sure what the problem was! They tested me for that among other things that I had only heard on House, but everything came back normal...