Most of this will sound utterly ridiculous, but bear with me! Also, buckle up as this will inevitably be a long'n! I'll go from the top.
This all started about 6/ 7 weeks ago... I think... I can't remember the exact point where I first noticed the pain but I'm pretty damn sure I got up from my computer desk to go a speak to my Mum about something. I'd had worries about DVT before but brushed them off quickly, however, this was in a different leg. It felt like a regular ol' cramp, but for some reason (well, a pretty obvious reason ;L), I became rather obsessed with it. I sat back down a few minutes later and the pain persisted, leading me to do the obvious Google thing, as I wasn't aware of any other DVT symptoms, and thought I'd find reassurance.
I sat there and read about the swelling, heat, tenderness, heaviness and discoloration that's commonly associated, none of which I had (besides the discolouration, but my legs are always and have always had a slightly strange colour) which took my mind off it a bit, despite the pain still not fully letting up. This reassurance, however, really didn't last.
I can't fully remember at what points other symptoms have come and gone over the last few weeks, as I've been rather busy, trying to go about my daily life and distract myself from it. I've been completely obsessed with my left leg throughout though, constantly comparing it to my right, looking in the mirror to spot any signs of swelling etc., poking and prodding to see if it feels any different to the other leg, stretching them both out to see if I could feel any pain and even using a tape measure to see if the circumference is greater than the other leg! I've had intermittent pain, ranging from a traditional cramp feeling to shooting pains and aches in my thigh, a "hard" area on the inner side of the calf that comes and goes pretty much randomly and what has felt like a kind of heavy/ tense feeling which has been the most persistent but not a constant symptom. UGH...
Anyway, skip to last night. After enduring all this sh*t for weeks and trying to avoid going to doctor's/ A&E (or ER), it all seemed to change. I was sat at my computer like I usually am late at night after a hard day of rearranging my room and cleaning. I got up to go get a drink and felt a new pain. This was a much sharper pain, very localised, right at the bottom of my calf on the inside. It worried me slightly but I carried on, trying to ignore it (despite it being a good 7/10 on the pain scale)! I came back to my room a few minutes later and sat cross-legged on my bed to check my phone when my brother walked in to have a quick chat. All of a sudden, I got a MASSIVE overwhelming sense of faintness, heat, panic and breathlessness, to which I "ran" into the bathroom to get away! I stood there looking in the mirror and felt that my heart was absolutely gunning it, probably around 160-180bpm. I composed myself and dunked my face in some cold water and sat down, managing to catch my breath (sort of), and my heart gradually began slowing. All of this only lasted about 2 minutes. Although this was most like a short but very intense anxiety attack from a stressful day, triggered by the "new pain" worry, I was finding it particularly hard to recover from, ESPECIALLY the "faint" feeling.
When I re-entered my room shaking like a leaf, feeling like I'd just been in a plane crash and developed the flu in the space of 3 minutes, my brother had gone, so I sat and sipped from a glass of water. This is where the real "fun" began. I noticed that the "new pain", along with the old pain AND persistent heavy/ tense feeling had vanished. Like COMPLETELY gone. This would usually be considered a good thing, however, my brain immediately jumped to the conclusion that "holy sh*t the clot has moved and what I'd just experienced was actually it entering my lung holy sh*t"...
I was so screwed from the "episode" a few minutes prior that I thought "f**k it" and got into bed. I would then spend the next 3 hours tossing and turning around, feeling lightheaded as hell (which I haven't had, particularly in bed, in MONTHS), sick, short of breath and like my heart was just going to stop. Skipped beats, indigestion, weird floating sensations, the real full monty for the first time in ages... Gutted...
Woke up this morning at around 8:30 feeling like I'd been sat on by an elephant all night, whilst being injected with every virus known to man. Just awful. Spent the whole day so far completely out of it, dizzy, physically ill, tight chested and still constantly checking to see it the feeling in my leg has come back (which funnily enough at this point is all I want)! It feels a bit off but still not like it has for the last month or so, and I just simply CAN NOT shake the idea that this clot that may or may not exist has moved and is going to just kill me at some point. Constantly breathing in deeply to check for pain etc. I don't usually get annoyed by anything, but I've felt so much better overall for so long that this huge set back is REALLY grinding my gears, which of course is making everything much worse!
Anyway, there's my story of my delightful ordeal over the last few weeks. All I want from this is reassurance, as I really want to avoid wasting paramedic's/ doctor's time. If ANYONE knows ANYTHING about, or has experience with DVT and PE, could you please let me know if ANY of this^ sound familiar, or if I'm being a complete Nancy over the whole thing.
Thank you to anyone who's read this! I shall eagerly await your responses 😎x
), but the thought of DVT has barely crossed my mind, and the leg symptoms seem to have greatly reduced in frequency!
Bone cancer???
Did I just suffer a heart attack/DVT?
That was a big one
Worries of heart failure
