So I arrived back from a long haul flight yesterday and begun to feel pain in my chest. Went A&E and was admitted overnight to find out today that I have a blood clot in my lung (it’s quite painful). I’m being put on warfarin. Anyone else experienced this?

No!

Get well :-O

Jees, get well soon man. sounds pretty dangerous.

A chap in the local cycling club had similar, he got a clot in his calf which broke up and moved to his lung. He had lost a 1/3 of one lung by the time it was resolved. At that point he was one of BA’s best customers (top 100 worldwide) flying business class several times every week and had been for years.

Some good info here: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/pulmonary-embolism-leaflet

My dad had a massive PE about 8 years ago but recovered quickly and had no lasting issues. Get well soon.

Wow hope the thinners works, get well soon.

We thought the wife did following an emergency appendectomy, but it turned out to be ‘only’ sarcoidosis. After a lung biopsy to rule out cancer.

Hi-you should be fine on the warfarin; had one a few years back. Really painful and worrying but a few months later was back on the bike with no worries or repeats despite crashing! I think mine was caused initially when I crashed at lee quarry, landing on my hip-caused the clot. A couple of days later drove to scotland for a race-allowed it to travel to my lung- but woke up the following morning unable to breathe and incredibly sharp pains-not nice! A&E stranrar was inconclusive so I drove myself home as pain had gone and breathing ok. I got a phonecall a couple of hours later from a&e stranrar saying I need to get to A&E again as blood results suggested a clot! Again drove myself to hospital where they found a huge clot on my lung. Warfarin for the next 6 months or so and lots of blood tests for the inr. Had a few pains during extreme exertion in the 12 months afterwards but nothing since so seems ok now-doctors thought there maybe permenant damage to lung.
Good luck with yours, hopefully youre not prone to them! Sorry for the long post, hope it helps.

Bloody hell! Not had any experience of this, but I really hope you get well soon!

I had a DVT a few years ago after a collar bone op. Arm was like a very big grey sausage. A week of Heparin jabs in the gut followed by a year of Warfarin and blood tests… Right as rain now.

There’s much better treatments than warfarin available now, ask your doc about going on one of the new NOAC’s (novel oral anti-coagulants) they’re more effective and much easier to use. Their use still isn’t commonplace in the uk yet as they are more e xpensive than warfarin. Good luck with it howarth.

Rivaroxaban is the only NOAC currently approved by NICE for treatment of acute PE in the UK. It is equal to warfarin in its efficacy and has similar rates of bleeding, but lower rates of major/life threatening bleeds. There is no proven antidote to rivaroxaban, however, whereas there is with warfarin. There is no need for regular blood tests with rivaroxaban.

Swings and roundabouts… Not sure one is better than the other, they’re just different.

Their use still isn’t commonplace in the uk yet as they are more expensive than warfarin.

As above, nothing to do with cost. Although the drug is more expensive by the time you factor in the cost of the regular blood tests and monitoring of warfarin the switch to rivaroxaban etc. is undoubtably cost effective BUT

There is no proven antidote to rivaroxaban, however, whereas there is with warfarin.

this concentrates the mind. Already had several patients come through needing emergency surgery or suffering bleeding ulcers etc. and other than shoveling in the blood products there is not a lot you can do for 12-24 hours.

As soon as one of the drug companies comes up with an antidote to their new agent expect almost instant switchover and a massive boost to their profits.

Well – they are working out which drug is right for me. As I have a low platelet count (~100) it looks like warfarin. Crap night last night eventually helped with some morphine

Eek. Fella at work found out he has this last week. 2 clots on the lung :/ hope you get better soon as it can’t be fun.

wot they ^ said

warfarin’s feared by people who think of rat poison but in the hands of a sensible* patient it’s a pretty good drug (with a decent escape hatch)

(*read the yellow booklet)

So how do people deal with big pain? I’ve been discharged today, my ribs are spasming and it’s firkin painful. Morphine was good but they won’t allow out of hospital. MTFU is not going to cut it

Sorry, can’t help with the pain. But I guess you’ll want to know about riding when on warfarin. I asked the same question…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-on-warfarin-and-riding

… most difficult thing for me is getting the diet right. I must remember not to stay with veggie friends just before a test.

(edit) painful ribs might be easier if you sleep sitting in an armchair, padded with cushions both sides. It’s helped me with mechanical damage.