well i was diagnosed last week with a dvt in my right calf after having foot sugery on my right foot. i was put on coumadin 5mg and after my first INR, it stayed at 5mg.

we are due to drive to virginia this weekend, which is a 6 hour trip, and i am unsure what to think. i know it may sound foolish but you have no idea how important this trip is for me and my family.

i have not talked to my doctor yet but i put a call in to his office yesterday and no one returned my call. it has only been a week so it has all happened so fast and i'm afraid he will not want me to go. i am just thinking that i can keep it elevated since we have a minivan, i can sit in the back and keep it above my heart and we are planning on stopping every hour to hour and 15 minutes and letting me get out and walk around for a bit.

i know no one here is a doctor but i was just wondering what any of you would do. would you go on this trip? i would appreciate any help i could find. thanks. :)

I had this exact issue only a few months ago. I was diagnosed with a DVT that goes from my calf up into my groin (it's HUGE! lol) on Christmas Eve last year. I have spent months since then trying to recover from it, and it's been a very long, painful and scary road. But in September, I had the opporitunity to go to visit my boyfriend and family in Upstate NY, which is a 10+ hour drive from NC. Prior to this, my doctor didn't want me even driving, let alone riding in a car for that long. But because my INR had stabilized and I had been doing well, he said it was okay to go. My doctor told me that I could go as long as I got out of the car every hour or two and walked around for 15 minutes before getting back in the car. Also, he wanted me to get a compression stocking to wear, which helps circulate the blood when you're unable to move (if you do get one put it on FIRST thing in the morning before you even get out of bed, just a tip :) ) There is a store down here in NC that only sells compression stockings so maybe you could contact your doctor to see if this is something that would work for you as well. The brand I got is called Jobst Compression Stocking.

Because you were only just diagnosed he might be more reluctant to letting you go. I know it's hard, but if he does say know it's because it's for your best interest. The last thing you want to do is have your clot get worse or move into your lungs. I would say just be careful, and if your doctor says it's okay to go follow his directions and suggestions to the T. It sounds like you've already got your plan set, so I sure hope your doctor says you can go.

Oh, and if you do go, drink LOTS of water, and stay away from the caffeinated drinks if you can. It helps the blood to circulate if you drink all that water. :) And don't forget the Coumadin :) If you're not getting a call back from your doctor, keep calling and request to talk with one of the doctors nurses. Sometimes I have to do that, and it helps.

Best of luck to you!

thank you so much for responding! yes, i do have a compression stocking and i have not been able to wear it too much because i have so much swelling but i try to keep it on for as long as i can each day. i will definitely be wearing that for the trip as well.

i did speak to the doctor today and he said to do all the things i already said so i feel pretty good. luckily my clot is not that big so he thinks i should most likely be okay. i will definitely keep up the water throughout the ride and i am starting to actually feel good about something for the first time since i was diagnosed!

thanks so much and i hope that you are doing well with your dvt. are you on coumadin? i am on 5mg right now but it has only been a week so we'll see what happens. i think i was more in shock the last week than anything! thanks again for your help! :cool:

Oh I'm thrilled that your doctor is okay with you going. That's fantastic news! I know when I was given the OK to go, I felt like I was on cloud 9! My diagnosis was Christmas Eve last year, and I spent 6 days in the hospital because of it, and spent months in bed. It's been a very long ordeal for me, so I understand you when you say you've been in shock. It's horrible to hear you have a blood clot! I am on Coumadin, currently I'm taking 8mg every day except for Tues. and Sat., and those days I take 6mg. It took over 6 months to get my PT/INR levels regulated, so it's been a long, long road.

I wish you only the best for your trip, and have a fantastic time. Just make sure you rest often and walk around as much as you possibly can to get that blood moving :) Wishing you a great trip! *HUGS*

thank you so much for your support! i wouldn't say my doctor was "thrilled" like you are - lol - but he told me how i had to follow the rules and i needed to realize how serious this was. he did even say a lot of doctors would probably tell me no since i was just diagnosed but he thinks that it is a shorter trip and following the guidelines i should be okay.

boy, i cannot tell you how much i am still in shock. i feel like i cannot find enough information on the internet to quench my thirst! i was told that for a minimum, i would be on coumadin for 3-6 months so i am really going to try to be as consistent as possible during the week to try to get my INR to be stable.

can i ask you a question? do you see a vascular doctor or do you go to a hematologist? the reason i ask is that i have a vascular doctor but all the research i've done and the one friend we have who had a clot 7 years ago at a really young age, says to find a hematologist. they say that they will do the test right then and there and if your blood is up or down, they'll ask you what changes you may have had during that week (i.e. drank at a party, ate greens you don't normally, etc.). so i was just wondering what you thought about all of that. i hope you don't mind my asking. thanks again so much. :)

It really sounds like you're prepared for everything that comes along with this trip, and that's wonderful. Your doctor has given you lots of advice (good advice in my opinion! :) ) I hope you are able to check in after your trip, I'd love to hear how it went! :)

I don't mind you asking questions at all! This board has been so extremely helpful to me, and I have learned a LOT, and I sure don't mind sharing what I've exerienced and learned. I had seen both a vascular surgeon and a hematologist. When I was in the hospital, I had all sorts of specialists coming in and talking to me. The vascular surgeon said that I wasn't a candidate for any sort of surgery he could preform, so I only saw him once. The hematoligst was fantastic, and I absolutely recommend seeing one. If you don't mind me asking, do the doctors know how you got your blood clot? The reason I ask is that I saw a hematoligist who ran a TON of blood tests to see if my clot came from genetic blood clotting disorders (turns out there are quite a few!). Luckily, it came back that I had none of these disorders, but the hematoligist was ever so helpful.

My blood clot came from birth control pills. Being 25, everyone was so surprised when I came in with this huge 2 foot long blood clot. One of the first things they asked me in the ER was if I was on birth control, and I said yes. I'd been on one form of BC pills or another since the age of 14 because of horrific periods. I was just one of the "lucky" ones who ended up with a blood clot because of birth control pills, and because of this I can never go on any sort of hormonal treatment ever again. I just wanted to share this with you too, because if you're on birth control pills or anything birth control wise that has hormones, I would really check with your doctor if you haven't already. It sounds like your blood clot isn't too awful big, which is wonderful!

I'm so sorry to ramble. I guess I just have a passion for helping others who share the same sort of thing as I do, and let me tell you with a blood clot that was solid from my calf to my pelvis, I have done LOTS of research! :)

Also please don't hesitate to ask me any questions, because I would be more than glad to help. :) *BIG HUGS*

thanks again!

well as for how i got to this point, i fell back in july and fractured my foot pretty badly so i had surgery where they put a screw in to hold the bone together. however, no one ever asked me if i had a history of blood clots either myself or in my family so i never really even thought about it honestly. even though my mother has had 3 dvt's and one became a PE.

then while i had my cast on, i was getting the most horrific charlie horses in my right calf (right foot was broken foot) and when i would tell the doctor's office EVERY WEEK, they told me it was just muscle pain from not using the muscles. well needless to say, after i got my cast off, i went back for a four week check up and i was still pretty swollen so he sent me to a vascular doctor for an ultrasound.

when i went to the vascular doctor, they found the clot and put me on the coumadin and i am supposed to check in with this one nurse each friday. but like i said, everything else is telling me that i think i should be with a hematologist who can be on top of it. when i went to the vascular doctor, i did ask him if he thought my mother's history may have played a roll and he said no, he thought this was all from the surgery. however the surgeon, of course thought it was that i was predisposed and had nothing to do with the surgery.

so now here i am on my coumadin and i'm trying to figure it all out as far as how to be consistent each week so that i hopefully can get off of it as soon as possible. have the doctors told you how long you may be on it? the vascular guy said maybe down the line, he would test me for hereditary blood problems but as of now, not to worry.

again, i wrote a novel, sorry!!! thanks so much for listening and like i said, right now i'm just so excited about getting away this weekend and i feel like i have something to look forward to. thanks for all of your support and i will definitely let you know how the trip went. thanks waterfairy! :)

Wow it sounds like you had a lot of termoil with your clot getting diagnosed! But I'm truly glad that you are able to get down to what caused that charlie horse in your calf. I woke up in the middle of the night one night with an awful painful cramp in my calf, one that I had never felt before. I hadn't done anything strenuous the day before or hit it or anything, but I still thought it was just a cramp. Unfortunately that was the clot forming, as you know all too well.

I'm so sorry your doctors didn't listen to you when you thought there was something wrong. That's just so harsh, because sometimes our doctors just think that our concerns aren't justified. But at least you got it diagnosed! I am honestly very surprised that your doctor doesn't want to test you for genetic distorders given the fact that your poor Mom has had a terrible history with DVTs and PE. I would honestly myself, want to rule these out before ever going off of the Coumadin. I would highly recommend finding a hematoligist because that's what they deal with, is everything to do with our blood. My hematologist did ask me almost the moment he met me, if anyone in my family had a history of blood clots. He asked me a whole bunch of questions about my family history, diseases, etc. I think with your Mom's history, and of course this is my opinion, I would find a good hematologist and start the process of finding out of you've got something more than a DVT from surgery.

I have been on the Coumadin since Christmas Eve last year, and my doctor doesn't see me coming off of it anytime soon. He wants me to lose weight, because being overweight doesn't help with mobility and getting the blood circulated, so I'm on it indefinitely. I was also put on Lovenox, which is a shot given to me twice a day to help the clot adhere to the vein so it wouldn't move or break up. I was on that for two weeks, including when I got home from the hospital. Since the beginnig of taking all of this stuff, I have had a terrible, terrible time getting myself regulated on the Coumadin. It took about 7 months for me to find what dose worked and my PT/INR levels in a theraputic range. I found that it's not only not eating broccoli and green veggies, but doing a LOT of research about what things have Vitamin K. I couldn't eat any greens, no green tea, no soy anything (including soy sauce), no soybean or canola oil, no mayonnaise or ranch dressing (it's loaded with soybean oil), cranberry or grapefuit juices. Just loads of things that I couldn't eat because the moment I did my blood thickened a LOT. Also if you take a multivitamin, it probably has Vitamin K in it...it took me forever trying to find one that doesn't!

Just some of the things I found out and thought I would pass along. Also too, I don't want to come across as a "know it all" because of this, I just wanted to share what I know in hopes that others never, ever end up with a blood clot the size of mine. I was in so much pain for the first 3 months I was on everything from Percocet, Oxycontin, and Morphine and sedated for a very long time. I couldn't even walk for a good two months without a walker and being in agony. I am just so thrilled that you don't have it that bad! I hope nobody ever does, it's just a terrible and fightening thing!

Once again, I ramble! :) If I don't hear from you before your trip, have a FANTASTIC trip! *Hugs*