Patient Stories

I am a 56+year old male.  I have occasional asthma, primarily exercised induced.  If I notice asthma symptoms while working out, I can usually push through them and finish the work-out, although I do use a bronchodilator when I need to. I am an avid martial arts devotee – black belt in one style, brown…

My experience with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) began more than 30 years ago in November 1979 when I was 30, and pregnant with my second child.  I flew with my husband and 3-year-old daughter from our home in Texas to visit my husband’s family in California for the Christmas holidays the next month.   While there,…

My experience with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) started in June 2010 when I was 37 years old.  My symptoms began a couple of days after I returned to Miami from a two week trip to Israel with my wife and best friends.  I felt a sharp pain in my left calf…

Caroline experienced debilitating blood clots two separate times in her life, but she’s not letting that stop her. Read about how she overcame her pain and lives her life to the fullest everyday, despite being on anticoagulants.

During the summer of 2008, I started feeling lightheaded when I walked up stairs or tried to lift something heavy.  This was a strange and new experience for me, since I go up and down stairs at work or at home about 30 times a day without effort.  I was then 41 years old and…

I consider myself a healthy 47 year old woman.  I exercise daily, eat healthy food choices, and am a non-smoker. In April 2011, I felt stabbing pains in my back on the right hand side under my rib cage, and the pain got worse every time I took a breath.  My husband drove me to…

Carmen McArthur’s story demonstrates the risk of blood clots associated with birth control pills.  Although the prescribing physician mentioned the risk, this patient did not think that she would be affected.  She chose the therapeutic benefit of the pills to treat heavy menstrual bleeding over what she perceived as minimal clotting …

I am a 58 year old teacher, a life-long runner, and live in Bedford, NH.  I noticed tightness in my right calf in early February 2007, and ignored it for a couple of weeks.  It was not painful, and I thought it was a slight muscle pull or soreness due to insufficient stretching after my…

I learned about NBCA in a brochure that was in my doctor’s office at the University of North Carolina, and wanted to share my story. I woke up one morning recently, and noticed that my left leg was swollen, and also felt pain in back of it, so much so that it felt as if…

My name is Kim Gronholz.  I am a 38 year old married mother of 3, an exercise addict, a former high school English teacher, a school/church volunteer, a stay-at-home mom, and most pertinently, a DVT/PE survivor! My husband and I had just returned home from a 5 day business/pleasure trip to Canada on a Sunday…