Woman

I was living in Arizona and going to school. I was in a very minor car accident where my knee hit the dashboard. It was bruised, and about two weeks later, I started feeling a painful cramp behind my knee, similar to a charley horse. When I told my primary care doctor, he ordered an…

There was a tingling sensation in my right leg with noticeable swelling, while pain developed in my chest and right side when I took deep breaths. I work as a hairstylist, so tired feet and legs come as no surprise, but this was different. I went to urgent care, and they recommended I go to…

The day after I returned from a trip to Los Angeles, I suddenly felt like I was having a panic attack. I tried all my usual tricks, but it would not go away. I do have health anxiety, and since I had just traveled, I decided to get checked out. I drove myself to the…

It all began at the beginning of August 2021. I had been having a cough, pain between my shoulder blades, shortness of breath, and fatigue. I assumed at the time that it was a virus since my granddaughter had just had that. On Saturday, August 7, I became extremely short of breath while in the…

In my twenties, I developed a pain in my calf that was extremely uncomfortable. I couldn’t put my foot on the ground to walk. My dad had DVTs a few years before and told me to go to the hospital. At the hospital, I was given an anticoagulant and sent for a scan the next…

In May 2024, a few days after delivering my first child via C-section, I began to feel heavy-chested and winded after doing very little, like walking and showering. I had already been discharged as a patient, but my son was in the NICU, so we were staying across the hall in the hospital. I really…

In February of 2020, I had recently gotten married, and the world was about to shut down. I developed unbearable chest pain and shortness of breath that I ignored for a week before finally going to the emergency room. It turned out that I had a massive pulmonary embolism. I was in shock, wondering how…

I had my blood first clot at 26. I visited a doctor, but they couldn’t diagnose it, saying it would fade with time. After two months, it did fade. At 28, when I was newly married and planning a baby, I got red bumps on my calves. I tried lymphatic exercises for two months, but…

At 39, I walked into a local emergency room with what I later learned were textbook symptoms of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). I was late into the first trimester of pregnancy, and my left leg had been bothering me for several days—starting as a crampy, achy feeling and quickly turning into…

When I was 32 years old, I experienced terrible pain behind my knee for weeks. My doctor said it’s from standing, and I need physical therapy. I did that, but the pain persisted. Eventually, I went to a vascular surgeon who did vein stripping surgery. Seven days post-op, I felt sick, like the flu, but…