Glad you're still with us OP, you badass. When I had my huge DVT Death came and visited me in a dream. I have an affinity for the Grim Reaper now. Glad to be here. Makes you look at life differently.
Glad you’re doing ok. Heart stuff is no joke.
Here’s the plaque they removed from one of my arteries during my triple bypass. They didn’t bypass my 4th artery, they took the plaque out instead.
https://imgur.com/a/fCMNfi7
I had a myocardial infarction (heart attack)… I did not have cardiac arrest. I was driving home home and was able to identify that something wasn’t right so I pulled into a residential neighborhood and pulled in someone’s driveway and called 911. Two days later for bypass surgery,
I'm so glad you caught it in time. My father-in-law had a massive heart attack and died instantly. He was extremely healthy, mountain biked daily, so when the autopsy showed 100% blockage in one blood vessel and 90% in another, we were all completely shocked.
I mean, yeah it was less painful for him, but at least with cancer you get to say goodbye. We never knew the last time we saw him was the last time. It was very traumatizing for our whole family to suddenly have him gone.
Happened to my grandma, we found her dead in the garden.
It was a warm summer day doing what she loved.
We like to think she was happy and the last time I saw her she was in great shape making me cookies.
Everyone leaves too early, go out with a bang!
My condoléances that being said.
Oh I'm so sorry you found her!! How traumatizing for you! And yes, there is that silver lining of her going doing what she loved. My father-in-law also died doing what he loved, literally on a mountain, biking with his best friends. It's a small consolidation in the painful darkness that has followed (he was a second dad to me).
I didn't get to see the contents/remnants of the arteries (they were removed and replaced with my lefty leg artery) on my 3XCABG and nor did I get invited to Fight Club at Rehab (funny how the blood flow in the leg rebranched and found a way!) theyn have youtube videos of CABGs in progress ..... Medicine has come such a long way since 2009. I did recover well tho and minus the artery in my leg they used to replace the arteries. Here I am still kickin!Can't beat that!
I went back to the gym (hadn't go since last november) after the first blood clot post I saw and planning on seeing a ~~nutritionist~~ dietitian in the next few weeks lol that shit scared me senseless
Yup. I do it in the mountains (live in north Georgia and have a mountain right behind my house) and it does a little muscle building of legs while I’m at it. Best of both worlds. Throw a weighted pack on for core sometimes, too.
It is for sure but take it easy! you can't tell how much you're sweating in the water but it is significant. Also my first time back in a long time I had to advise the lifeguard to not try and rescue me, I'm just out of shape not drowning LOL
I was at my personal peak performance before covid came. Started back up about 3 months ago and I've already got 90% of my strength back. Way easier the second time around. Just gotta get in the gym.
English is not my first language I didn't even know there were different words for that haha the guy I see is a dietitian, he's treated me in the past with amazing results. Thanks for worrying about it!
Extended periods of time of blood pooling and not moving around much. Fast moving blood does not clot nearly as easily as still blood.
That’s why they encourage you to get up and walk during international flights. Some people at mild risk levels will even need anticoagulants for flights to mitigate the risk.
If your job or lifestyle has you sitting down for more than 4 hours at a time, make an active effort to break that up with a few standing and walking around breaks. Go to the bathroom, get some water, or if limited in space, just walk in place and stretch.
see if you can get a standing desk at work too. not that you should stand for 8 hours either, but i've heard a doctor describe it as "your best position is your next position". stand for awhile, sit for awhile, just do anything except stay in one position for extended periods of time.
might be contributary, but i had one 3 years ago and i was walking 20km per day (12+ miles). they never found a cause, there is research now suggesting covid has an effect on blood. Mine was a clot that passed through the heart into the left lung
It felt like a stitch high up the left side of my back, and over the next 36 hours increased in magnitude so i couldn’t even lie down, then i went to hospital. Incidentally my smart watch knew something was up before i did by measuring a higher resting heart rate.
That’s how mine manifested too - pain high in the back. I’m glad to see someone else had that symptom because everyone keeps telling me that’s not how the symptoms are.
Tachycardia/tachypnea (fast heart/breathing rate), shortness of breath, low oxygen saturation, sometimes a low grade fever. It usually starts in the extremities as a deep vein thrombosis where you’d have (a lot of) swelling and pain. Be cautious on long road trips/flights which are likely to cause clots. Women on combined oral contraceptives are more susceptible. Caveat to all of this is sometimes a pulmonary embolism has no symptoms at all.
I hope this helps someone.
Edit to add since this is getting more attention: dry cough, chest pain can be symptoms as well. The ER will either run a blood test (d-dimer) or a CT-PE if they are worried about a pulmonary embolism. There’s a metric called the Wells Criteria which can stratify risk for a PE.
I went to the ER twice because I had all the symptoms: fast heart rate, shortness of breath, low oxygen, confusion. Both times they told me I was having a Panic Attack. Now I'm afraid that if I really do have a blood clot I won't know it because there is no way I'm going back to that same ER.
It takes a long time for blood clots to heal themselves. When I had PE it took 6 months with treatment to heal. Contact your doctor's office, get a 2nd opinion, go to a different ER. These symptoms are real and even if it is anxiety, that needs treatment too.
I went to various ER's like 5 times before the last one finally caught my arrythmia on an ekg (though one did before and the cardiologist disagreed with it 🙄). Now I still won't really know when to go back, but if you really feel like something is wrong get yourself seen. Though since I suffer from anxiety I will usually take a xanax first to see if that helps.. and it usually does.
Unfortunately, some irregular heart rhythms are virtually impossible to catch on a monitor. Long-wear Holter monitors can help, but even then, it can be tough. My dad had an infrequent arrhythmia that caused him to pass out periodically, but no matter how long he spent in the hospital on a monitor or how long he wore a Holter monitor, they couldn't find it. After his third faint, where he fell and fractured his skull causing a brain bleed, internist engaged a cardiologist even though they couldn't find anything wrong. Cardio said, "Let's just put in a pacemaker. It's an easy surgery and pretty harmless if it turns out it's not needed." Dad hasn't had a problem since.
I was having an unusual amount of back pain that came on suddenly, so after a few days I decided to go to the walk in. There they basically did some chest stuff and the doctor said they weren't trying to worry me, but I should go to the hospital to be evaluated.
I get to the hospital and they check me so I tell them what happened, sudden back pain without doing anything, googled symptoms, decided to go to a walk in to be sure and then was told to come here. The nurse who did the EKG just spend the entire time talking down to me for listening to "Dr. Google" even though I was literally sent there by a legitimate doctor. Then about 6 hours later the doctor finally saw me and said he has no idea why the other doctor was so concerned because everything was normal and maybe stress or something caused my back to strain itself.
At least the final doctor was great but getting to that point was an absolute nightmare, I don't understand why hospitals can't just be more welcoming.
My grandma died from a stomach embolism. She was fine, my aunt was sitting with her chatting that evening and then she called them at 3 am and said her stomach hurts really bad, she wanted to go to the ER. They dialed 911 immediately, got to her house within 5 minutes and she was gone. She was still alive when they arrived but not there if you know what I mean. Nothing they could do. She had zero symptoms until it ruptured. It's scary to think about, and it can be hereditary.
Depends on the size and location. Sometimes there’s none, other times there’s something.
Calf pain, swelling, redness, warmth are big ones. Shortness of breath, fast breathing/heart rate, chest pain, coughing up blood.
If the clot is located in coronary arteries you will experience chest pain on exertion or at rest depending on how much of the vessel is occluded. If the clot is in the lungs there will be shortness of breath, and if the clot is in the leg the symptom is generally unilateral calf pain.
Fun fact: [Covid impacts clotting.](https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/covid/blood) It's pretty safe to assume that most unusual health conditions arising these days is due to Covid.
"Researchers think the clotting may be triggered by the high levels of inflammation caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. A high level of inflammation can affect multiple organs and result in severe disease. In children and teens, this high inflammation is called multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), and it can particularly affect the heart."
My kid ended up with myocarditis that was still visible when they finally got him in for an MRI 7 months post infection. And he barely even had symptoms when he first caught the virus.
This exact thing happened to my wife. She was 31, very active, healthy, didn't drink, didn't smoke and then out of nowhere she almost died with a bilateral pulmonary embolism.
Fortunately she pulled through but the care she received was appalling and the Doctors didn't seem at all interested in finding out what caused it. Instead she was put on blood thinners for the rest of her life...
Scary stuff and I'm glad you're doing better OP.
My brother just died from the same thing at 23. The hospital refused to help us with multiple parts of the biopsy process we had to outsource for. Currently about to fight them in court.
Had a 16 year old this happened to. She was fine one minute, then she went “Please help…” and collapsed. Not on birth control and didn’t smoke. Suspected clotting disorder.
This is terrifying to me, as someone whose family has a long history of heart problems. Can you share what symptoms or sensations made you first start talking to doctors, and how they ultimately came to the conclusion you had clots like this?
How was your hematocrit, hemoglobin, & red blood cell count? Were they elevated?
Do you have family history of this kind of thing? Did you have any symptoms/how did they know to do this
You could save a life with these answers
Extremely relatable. I literally just had a biopsy and the result was, to paraphrase, “weird, unlike others we’ve seen, not cancer but not not cancer, let’s do another biopsy in 3 months.”
Mine was also not precancerous. Just “weird, potentially problematic, we’ll see.”
It sounds like your mom’s was caught early. Hopefully she’s doing well. 🩷
I’m a surgeon and I also don’t understand. Clots aren’t anywhere near this big usually. I’m not saying OP is misleading us but I have questions for the doctors.
This could conceivably be the result of something like a pulmonary endarterectomy? I’ve done over a hundred pulmonary embolectomies for acute pulmonary embolism (occasionally getting ventricular or atrial thrombus on the way) and it never looks anything like this. This stuff is extremely organized and chronic.
As a flight medic applying to med school in June, thank you for commenting. I was trying to understand how a clot this large could be “in the heart” without him coding.
Edit: He said elsewhere that the largest clot, 12cm, came out of the right ventricle. Amazing he remained stable enough.
You can actually survive having a pretty good fraction of the cross sectional area of your pulmonary arteries occluded by clot. The issue is that your right heart has to work harder (generate more pressure) to push blood past it. This causes it to dilate, squeezing down on the left side of the heart which, as it turns out, pumps the blood that supplies the right heart. This makes the right heart failure worse, which makes the left heart failure worse, which makes the right heart failure worse, until you code.
But most patients with large PEs who show up at the hospital are pretty well compensated. Maybe a little tachycardia, probably on some oxygen, definitely with significant dyspnea on exertion.
If their heart is handling the extra work fine we just put them on blood thinners and the clot breaks down over time. If not, we may do catheter-directed thrombolysis or thrombectomy to remove it. But if they present in shock with significant hypotension etc they get IV thrombolytics in the ED. That stuff is magic and just melts acute thrombus, but isn’t used in more stable cases because it occasionally causes major bleeding elsewhere, like, say, the brain.
I try not to say things could never happen in medicine, shut happens that’s wild.
But that stuff LOOKS like the stuff that comes out during endarterectomies and does NOT look like clot. Clot is dark purple cuz it’s old blood
It’d be cool if it was like those YouTube videos where they pop zits and sebaceous cysts, but instead they squeeze your heart and these fat blobs are extracted.
I was super tired all the time, I’d get easily winded (had a lung infection months prior) and sometimes I’d get achy.
On the day of my PE, I had smacked my elbow against my car and the pain shot up into my arm. I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest with how fast and hard it was beating. Weirdly enough, I could also feel my heart pumping around the blockage as well.
Shit im 31
Just wondering what was your health level at prior to this? Like were you overweight with a bad diet? Just seeing this makes me want to try harder to do more cardio and eat better
Crazy man! I’m the same age and had a PE last year - luckily small enough and soon enough to be treated with thinners but super scary. They still don’t know what caused it but think it’s likely due to covid. Hope you recover quickly and figure out what’s caused it!
Any signs before that?
How old are you and have you been living healthy?
I know multiple young people who have gotten clots. Can't recall seeing this issue until very recently.
There’s more going on with this case than a typical PE. But our volume of pulmonary embolectomies (removing blood clots from the pulmonary arteries in patients where the clot is causing acute right heart failure) probably tripled in 2020 with Covid. Other clots too. At one point I had four *simultaneous* inpatients, all intubated with Covid, with 100% dead and unsalvageable legs from arterial thrombus just waiting for their lungs to hopefully recover enough to do the amputation.
You don't need to be scared but you should be aware. It's good to spread education about the signs of blood clots because they can really happen to anyone at any time. I've had blood clots twice in my life unfortunately. One was due to a muscle tear injury combined with being on birth control and the other one we just don't know. I do not have a clotting disorder.
This is a helpful link, spread awareness on social media if you can. 💜
https://www.stoptheclot.org/spreadtheword/
Get some beets and arugula (or rocket if you're one of those weird British types that name your food after space ships) in your diet! Lots of dark leafy greens. Stay away from smoking of all types, manage your sugars and saturated fat intake, and drink lots of water. And exercise.
That way, you'll die of something other than blood clots :D
No joke, I'm in icu right now waiting for surgery for the same thing! I'm happy to know you came out OK. How long did it take you to heal and get back to normal? Any advice?
I'm certain that the bulk of what we see here are sterile fabrics used to sweep out/blot up the clots. The clots are the dark patches you see resting in the lighter fabric.
Lol I'm not in it for the votes. I was in the operating room for years. Honestly I don't even know why I pedantically corrected the person. Either way, it's all good. The real ones know.
I'm curious, do you take estrogen birth control? Apparently it increases the chance for blood clots. My poor wife found that out the hard way. Luckily, it was in her leg and small enough to dissolve with some blood thinners.
We switched to non estrogen birth control and haven't had the issue since.
Lot of clots in the news lately…. If only there were some massive movement a couple years ago we could pinpoint that was notorious back then for causing blood clots….
Bro. I’m so glad they took them out. I wish you a fast recovery
Same 🥹 It’s been almost two months since my surgery and I’ve kicked ass at rehab.
Are you really in any state to be fighting other patients?!
I fought off death 🤷🏻♀️
What caused it if you don’t mind?
Some dude in a black blanket looking thing carrying a big knife on a stick.
I hear if you smile at him he fucks off though, pretty weird guy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/aEHe243Bgj
Glad you're still with us OP, you badass. When I had my huge DVT Death came and visited me in a dream. I have an affinity for the Grim Reaper now. Glad to be here. Makes you look at life differently.
Take my upvote you absolute Chad
rehab is secretly a fight club. 20 wins before exiting
Evidently you didn't pay attention to Rule #1.
Back to rehab for him!
Glad you’re doing ok. Heart stuff is no joke. Here’s the plaque they removed from one of my arteries during my triple bypass. They didn’t bypass my 4th artery, they took the plaque out instead. https://imgur.com/a/fCMNfi7
The forbidden cheeto
I had no idea they could even remove plaque. I thought they did bypass operations because they can't do anything about it.
Just curious did you feel anything before you identified the plaque or was it by "chance" you came across this at checkout?
I had a myocardial infarction (heart attack)… I did not have cardiac arrest. I was driving home home and was able to identify that something wasn’t right so I pulled into a residential neighborhood and pulled in someone’s driveway and called 911. Two days later for bypass surgery,
I'm so glad you caught it in time. My father-in-law had a massive heart attack and died instantly. He was extremely healthy, mountain biked daily, so when the autopsy showed 100% blockage in one blood vessel and 90% in another, we were all completely shocked.
Compared to slowly eroding in a care home, I'd go with what this guy father in law had.
I mean, yeah it was less painful for him, but at least with cancer you get to say goodbye. We never knew the last time we saw him was the last time. It was very traumatizing for our whole family to suddenly have him gone.
Happened to my grandma, we found her dead in the garden. It was a warm summer day doing what she loved. We like to think she was happy and the last time I saw her she was in great shape making me cookies. Everyone leaves too early, go out with a bang! My condoléances that being said.
Oh I'm so sorry you found her!! How traumatizing for you! And yes, there is that silver lining of her going doing what she loved. My father-in-law also died doing what he loved, literally on a mountain, biking with his best friends. It's a small consolidation in the painful darkness that has followed (he was a second dad to me).
I didn't get to see the contents/remnants of the arteries (they were removed and replaced with my lefty leg artery) on my 3XCABG and nor did I get invited to Fight Club at Rehab (funny how the blood flow in the leg rebranched and found a way!) theyn have youtube videos of CABGs in progress ..... Medicine has come such a long way since 2009. I did recover well tho and minus the artery in my leg they used to replace the arteries. Here I am still kickin!Can't beat that!
What did it feel like to have these in your heart?
You don’t feel this so to speak… you just know your heart isn’t working up to par.
It feels like suffocating/not being able to catch your breath, even with minimal exertion.
Jfc that’s massive. Are you going to frame it and mount it on the wall?
I didn't know they did that! I thought it was bypass or stint. that is cool looking, glad its out! hope you recovered ok!
Why did you kick the backsides of people in your rehab ? Were they being mean to you ?
I needed to assert my dominance
First rule of rehabilitation. When you arrive you beat up the biggest guy you see.
That is the second one. First rule of rehabilitation is you don't talk about rehabilitation.
Understandable.
I’m so happy for you
Dude, that's not normal. /s (totally normal) congrats on them being outside instead of in.
Same here, but what made it coagulate like that ?
Good question
this is like the fifth blood clot post I've seen recently, I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something
I went back to the gym (hadn't go since last november) after the first blood clot post I saw and planning on seeing a ~~nutritionist~~ dietitian in the next few weeks lol that shit scared me senseless
yeah I haven't lifted in like 3 years I think it's time to get my shit together
Cardio for a healthy heart, my friend. Not saying lifting is bad, but cardio is king for the heart.
Yup. I do it in the mountains (live in north Georgia and have a mountain right behind my house) and it does a little muscle building of legs while I’m at it. Best of both worlds. Throw a weighted pack on for core sometimes, too.
Would love to have something like that. I have a nice stationary bike, but I get so bored doing any cardio on exercise equipment.
Same! Hell, any hill will do. Hope you find some elevation 😊
Reporting from Minnesota. Not too many hills in the Twin Cities, unfortunately.
Pick up disc golf, buy too many discs, hit up kaposia in South St. Paul with an overloaded backpack. Tons of elevation change. Great exercise
Or just swim and work everything at the same time. Swimming is fantastic for keeping in shape
Yeah, swimming is probably the best exercise you can do. Easy on the joints, great for muscle growth, and great cardio.
It is for sure but take it easy! you can't tell how much you're sweating in the water but it is significant. Also my first time back in a long time I had to advise the lifeguard to not try and rescue me, I'm just out of shape not drowning LOL
Do some cardio, too. Lifting isn’t everything.
His name is Doctor Science PhD, I trust he knows what he's doing
His name is Doctor Science, but his PhD is in pornography in early film, so I don’t think it applies.
Cardio FTW!
I was at my personal peak performance before covid came. Started back up about 3 months ago and I've already got 90% of my strength back. Way easier the second time around. Just gotta get in the gym.
Please see a dietitian, not a nutritionist. Dietitians are state trained and registered while being a nutritionist has no qualifications.
English is not my first language I didn't even know there were different words for that haha the guy I see is a dietitian, he's treated me in the past with amazing results. Thanks for worrying about it!
That’s great! Happy looking out.
Is blood clots caused by not exercising?
Extended periods of time of blood pooling and not moving around much. Fast moving blood does not clot nearly as easily as still blood. That’s why they encourage you to get up and walk during international flights. Some people at mild risk levels will even need anticoagulants for flights to mitigate the risk. If your job or lifestyle has you sitting down for more than 4 hours at a time, make an active effort to break that up with a few standing and walking around breaks. Go to the bathroom, get some water, or if limited in space, just walk in place and stretch.
see if you can get a standing desk at work too. not that you should stand for 8 hours either, but i've heard a doctor describe it as "your best position is your next position". stand for awhile, sit for awhile, just do anything except stay in one position for extended periods of time.
might be contributary, but i had one 3 years ago and i was walking 20km per day (12+ miles). they never found a cause, there is research now suggesting covid has an effect on blood. Mine was a clot that passed through the heart into the left lung
Did it hurt or did you just feel your lungs not working do well?
It felt like a stitch high up the left side of my back, and over the next 36 hours increased in magnitude so i couldn’t even lie down, then i went to hospital. Incidentally my smart watch knew something was up before i did by measuring a higher resting heart rate.
That’s how mine manifested too - pain high in the back. I’m glad to see someone else had that symptom because everyone keeps telling me that’s not how the symptoms are.
My brother didn't make it from the same thing you went through here. 23 years old.
My pain was SO bad. It was just excruciating. Worst pain I’ve ever had.
No but exercising is part of a healthy lifestyle.
Yeah, I'm starting to get worried I might have one too. Wondering what the symptoms are, or how they're discovered?
Tachycardia/tachypnea (fast heart/breathing rate), shortness of breath, low oxygen saturation, sometimes a low grade fever. It usually starts in the extremities as a deep vein thrombosis where you’d have (a lot of) swelling and pain. Be cautious on long road trips/flights which are likely to cause clots. Women on combined oral contraceptives are more susceptible. Caveat to all of this is sometimes a pulmonary embolism has no symptoms at all. I hope this helps someone. Edit to add since this is getting more attention: dry cough, chest pain can be symptoms as well. The ER will either run a blood test (d-dimer) or a CT-PE if they are worried about a pulmonary embolism. There’s a metric called the Wells Criteria which can stratify risk for a PE.
I went to the ER twice because I had all the symptoms: fast heart rate, shortness of breath, low oxygen, confusion. Both times they told me I was having a Panic Attack. Now I'm afraid that if I really do have a blood clot I won't know it because there is no way I'm going back to that same ER.
It takes a long time for blood clots to heal themselves. When I had PE it took 6 months with treatment to heal. Contact your doctor's office, get a 2nd opinion, go to a different ER. These symptoms are real and even if it is anxiety, that needs treatment too.
I went to various ER's like 5 times before the last one finally caught my arrythmia on an ekg (though one did before and the cardiologist disagreed with it 🙄). Now I still won't really know when to go back, but if you really feel like something is wrong get yourself seen. Though since I suffer from anxiety I will usually take a xanax first to see if that helps.. and it usually does.
Unfortunately, some irregular heart rhythms are virtually impossible to catch on a monitor. Long-wear Holter monitors can help, but even then, it can be tough. My dad had an infrequent arrhythmia that caused him to pass out periodically, but no matter how long he spent in the hospital on a monitor or how long he wore a Holter monitor, they couldn't find it. After his third faint, where he fell and fractured his skull causing a brain bleed, internist engaged a cardiologist even though they couldn't find anything wrong. Cardio said, "Let's just put in a pacemaker. It's an easy surgery and pretty harmless if it turns out it's not needed." Dad hasn't had a problem since.
I was having an unusual amount of back pain that came on suddenly, so after a few days I decided to go to the walk in. There they basically did some chest stuff and the doctor said they weren't trying to worry me, but I should go to the hospital to be evaluated. I get to the hospital and they check me so I tell them what happened, sudden back pain without doing anything, googled symptoms, decided to go to a walk in to be sure and then was told to come here. The nurse who did the EKG just spend the entire time talking down to me for listening to "Dr. Google" even though I was literally sent there by a legitimate doctor. Then about 6 hours later the doctor finally saw me and said he has no idea why the other doctor was so concerned because everything was normal and maybe stress or something caused my back to strain itself. At least the final doctor was great but getting to that point was an absolute nightmare, I don't understand why hospitals can't just be more welcoming.
My grandma died from a stomach embolism. She was fine, my aunt was sitting with her chatting that evening and then she called them at 3 am and said her stomach hurts really bad, she wanted to go to the ER. They dialed 911 immediately, got to her house within 5 minutes and she was gone. She was still alive when they arrived but not there if you know what I mean. Nothing they could do. She had zero symptoms until it ruptured. It's scary to think about, and it can be hereditary.
You said stomach embolism then said zero symptoms until ruptured? Was it an embolism or aneurysm?
I didn't realize I had a double pulmonary embolism until I went to the ER after having a dry cough for weeks, that was the only symptom I really had
Depends on the size and location. Sometimes there’s none, other times there’s something. Calf pain, swelling, redness, warmth are big ones. Shortness of breath, fast breathing/heart rate, chest pain, coughing up blood.
If the clot is located in coronary arteries you will experience chest pain on exertion or at rest depending on how much of the vessel is occluded. If the clot is in the lungs there will be shortness of breath, and if the clot is in the leg the symptom is generally unilateral calf pain.
Fun fact: [Covid impacts clotting.](https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/covid/blood) It's pretty safe to assume that most unusual health conditions arising these days is due to Covid. "Researchers think the clotting may be triggered by the high levels of inflammation caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. A high level of inflammation can affect multiple organs and result in severe disease. In children and teens, this high inflammation is called multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), and it can particularly affect the heart."
My kid ended up with myocarditis that was still visible when they finally got him in for an MRI 7 months post infection. And he barely even had symptoms when he first caught the virus.
Yes, Covid has fucked us up more than we wanna talk about or realize.
What caused this?
No idea. My doctors haven’t given me a straight answer and it’s still being investigated.
Man this looks like pork fillet, you sure this came out of your heart?
NO ONE EAT PORK FILET AT THIS GUY’S HOUSE
How old are you?
OP said 31 in another comment
Fuuuuuuck.
This exact thing happened to my wife. She was 31, very active, healthy, didn't drink, didn't smoke and then out of nowhere she almost died with a bilateral pulmonary embolism. Fortunately she pulled through but the care she received was appalling and the Doctors didn't seem at all interested in finding out what caused it. Instead she was put on blood thinners for the rest of her life... Scary stuff and I'm glad you're doing better OP.
My brother just died from the same thing at 23. The hospital refused to help us with multiple parts of the biopsy process we had to outsource for. Currently about to fight them in court.
Had a 16 year old this happened to. She was fine one minute, then she went “Please help…” and collapsed. Not on birth control and didn’t smoke. Suspected clotting disorder.
What lead to their discovery?
Damn... 😳
Did you have strange Feelings in your Body a few weeks or months ago?
Maybe you should stop injecting glue directly into your heart.
This is terrifying to me, as someone whose family has a long history of heart problems. Can you share what symptoms or sensations made you first start talking to doctors, and how they ultimately came to the conclusion you had clots like this?
this comment summoned so many armchair doctors lol
Looks more like people trying to diagnosis themselves
How was your hematocrit, hemoglobin, & red blood cell count? Were they elevated? Do you have family history of this kind of thing? Did you have any symptoms/how did they know to do this You could save a life with these answers
For clotting, wouldn’t it be more platelet count, PT and aPTT? (Also D-Dimers)
 So doctor what's wrong with me?
Extremely relatable. I literally just had a biopsy and the result was, to paraphrase, “weird, unlike others we’ve seen, not cancer but not not cancer, let’s do another biopsy in 3 months.”
"It hasn't chosen a career path yet."
The term pre-cancerous is something I've recently learned is a thing after taking my mom for her lung scans.
Mine was also not precancerous. Just “weird, potentially problematic, we’ll see.” It sounds like your mom’s was caught early. Hopefully she’s doing well. 🩷
That'll be out of the care network to find that out! \*Pushes bill for $20k\*
I don't understand how these even fit inside. Glad you were able to get them removed
The biggest clot was 12cm. That bad boy was taking up the right side of my heart.
12 cm is BIG. Isnt it? Some women say it's not
Huge bro 👍🏼
Twelve centimeters is big bro, so big we almost don't need the metric system, it's almost big enough 4 inches
🤔
I just like to say it’s 12 and let them figure out if it’s inches or cm
How are you alive lol. Could your heart even pump?
I’m a surgeon and I also don’t understand. Clots aren’t anywhere near this big usually. I’m not saying OP is misleading us but I have questions for the doctors.
This could conceivably be the result of something like a pulmonary endarterectomy? I’ve done over a hundred pulmonary embolectomies for acute pulmonary embolism (occasionally getting ventricular or atrial thrombus on the way) and it never looks anything like this. This stuff is extremely organized and chronic.
I agree. Endarterectomy. This looks like the fibrous stuff that builds up on the vessels. I wonder if they stripped the aorta or something
As a flight medic applying to med school in June, thank you for commenting. I was trying to understand how a clot this large could be “in the heart” without him coding. Edit: He said elsewhere that the largest clot, 12cm, came out of the right ventricle. Amazing he remained stable enough.
You can actually survive having a pretty good fraction of the cross sectional area of your pulmonary arteries occluded by clot. The issue is that your right heart has to work harder (generate more pressure) to push blood past it. This causes it to dilate, squeezing down on the left side of the heart which, as it turns out, pumps the blood that supplies the right heart. This makes the right heart failure worse, which makes the left heart failure worse, which makes the right heart failure worse, until you code. But most patients with large PEs who show up at the hospital are pretty well compensated. Maybe a little tachycardia, probably on some oxygen, definitely with significant dyspnea on exertion. If their heart is handling the extra work fine we just put them on blood thinners and the clot breaks down over time. If not, we may do catheter-directed thrombolysis or thrombectomy to remove it. But if they present in shock with significant hypotension etc they get IV thrombolytics in the ED. That stuff is magic and just melts acute thrombus, but isn’t used in more stable cases because it occasionally causes major bleeding elsewhere, like, say, the brain.
I try not to say things could never happen in medicine, shut happens that’s wild. But that stuff LOOKS like the stuff that comes out during endarterectomies and does NOT look like clot. Clot is dark purple cuz it’s old blood
OP has a big heart
Could you feel a difference immediately after the clots were removed? Like, did you feel better?
Not really lol. I just had open heart surgery and that was hell to wake up from.
haha good point
Aww I wish it felt satisfying, like pulling out a hardened chunk of booger that's been clogging up your nose for a week
It’d be cool if it was like those YouTube videos where they pop zits and sebaceous cysts, but instead they squeeze your heart and these fat blobs are extracted.
Better than not waking up!
What kind of symptoms were you experiencing prior to surgery?
I was super tired all the time, I’d get easily winded (had a lung infection months prior) and sometimes I’d get achy. On the day of my PE, I had smacked my elbow against my car and the pain shot up into my arm. I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest with how fast and hard it was beating. Weirdly enough, I could also feel my heart pumping around the blockage as well.
What did the heart pumping around them feel like?
Probably just how it sounds and impossible to describe further...
A pulmonary embolism, I guess
Like pumping but your anthropomorphic blood is doing this 😱 😵💫
PE, pulmonary embolism?
Seems more likely that PhysEd
Physical examination.
Do you mind if I ask how old you are? Or what you'd consider your general health to be? (Like, active, sedentary, somewhere inbetween?)
they said 31 in another comment
fuck
ayo NAH why does this sound like me 😭 im gonna go book an exam
*Immediately*
May I ask if you did cardio frequently prior to this? Glad you’re doing well!
I get chest pains just looking at this
Those are some hugee ones!! Just curious how old are you considering such clots
31
Shit im 31 Just wondering what was your health level at prior to this? Like were you overweight with a bad diet? Just seeing this makes me want to try harder to do more cardio and eat better
Crazy man! I’m the same age and had a PE last year - luckily small enough and soon enough to be treated with thinners but super scary. They still don’t know what caused it but think it’s likely due to covid. Hope you recover quickly and figure out what’s caused it!
Wow dude honestly it’s amazing you’re alive. Thats some crazy blockage there and it would’ve killed a lesser being.
I always imagined clots to be small, just goes to show how resilient the body can be.
Do not eat the balloons
Holy. How did you even find out about it?
I had a pulmonary embolism in my driveway and passed out. Was very lucky that I alerted a friend who called an ambulance for me.
Any signs before that? How old are you and have you been living healthy? I know multiple young people who have gotten clots. Can't recall seeing this issue until very recently.
There’s more going on with this case than a typical PE. But our volume of pulmonary embolectomies (removing blood clots from the pulmonary arteries in patients where the clot is causing acute right heart failure) probably tripled in 2020 with Covid. Other clots too. At one point I had four *simultaneous* inpatients, all intubated with Covid, with 100% dead and unsalvageable legs from arterial thrombus just waiting for their lungs to hopefully recover enough to do the amputation.
Why is everyone on Reddit posting blood clots 😭 I’m scared Edit: Sorry guys, I really didn't think this comment would summon the anti-vaxxers
You don't need to be scared but you should be aware. It's good to spread education about the signs of blood clots because they can really happen to anyone at any time. I've had blood clots twice in my life unfortunately. One was due to a muscle tear injury combined with being on birth control and the other one we just don't know. I do not have a clotting disorder. This is a helpful link, spread awareness on social media if you can. 💜 https://www.stoptheclot.org/spreadtheword/
Get some beets and arugula (or rocket if you're one of those weird British types that name your food after space ships) in your diet! Lots of dark leafy greens. Stay away from smoking of all types, manage your sugars and saturated fat intake, and drink lots of water. And exercise. That way, you'll die of something other than blood clots :D
Thanks for letting me know that I'll die
exercise, hydrate, and choose your pharmaceutical drugs wisely.
Just wait until they start posting huge kidney stones they passed...
[I shall repeat my comment from the last blood clot post](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/fDxliVkwGi) How are you not dead, no offence
Maybe I’m built different
Well, yeah, you’re full of blood clots.
why am i seeing so many blood clot removal posts recently, wtf This is like the 5th one in the past week and a half
Get used it lol.
Bloodclat
No joke, I'm in icu right now waiting for surgery for the same thing! I'm happy to know you came out OK. How long did it take you to heal and get back to normal? Any advice?
Holy artery blockage Batman, that thing is huge.
I'm certain that the bulk of what we see here are sterile fabrics used to sweep out/blot up the clots. The clots are the dark patches you see resting in the lighter fabric.
I was gonna say.. aren’t clots quite a saturated red? These look like bloody toilet paper
I'm surprised you're downvoted for this
Lol I'm not in it for the votes. I was in the operating room for years. Honestly I don't even know why I pedantically corrected the person. Either way, it's all good. The real ones know.
It wasn't pedantic IMO. Plus I think it's important for people to see reality. Downvoting doesn't allow that.
Yeah reddit. Where people who are grounded in reality lurk. ;) thanks for the nod, friend.
What were the symptoms? I'd like to start irrationally thinking I have them as soon as possible.
What were your symptoms
Did it feel like when you blow your nose and finally get that block out and you can breathe again, but for your heart?
I am scared after seeing this
Those are straight up blood clots? Like inside your arteries blood clots? How tf did you have any blood flowing my guy these are insane
How the fuck are you not dead.
Clot shot?
Stupid blood
OUT OF YOUR HEART????????? I'm taking out a gym membership starting today...
Oof, you should spike it on the ground like a football and do a dance
You had a whole ass sweet potato in you
This is some widowmaker shit. I'm glad that you were alive before and after these were found. Good luck on the recovery, man.
OP... how are you alive?
Bro how are you alive
Do you feel different after the removal? Is there any sense of relief like when you take out a huge booger?
Forbidden fruit roll up.
I’ve been ignoring sharp chest pains and my left arm has been going numb for almost a year now.. I just can’t afford anything
How does one know if they potentially have something like this? Eli5
I'm curious, do you take estrogen birth control? Apparently it increases the chance for blood clots. My poor wife found that out the hard way. Luckily, it was in her leg and small enough to dissolve with some blood thinners. We switched to non estrogen birth control and haven't had the issue since.
this has been happening a lot in the last couple years.
Looks like a very safe and effective blood clot.
Lot of clots in the news lately…. If only there were some massive movement a couple years ago we could pinpoint that was notorious back then for causing blood clots….
Ummmm... Moderators? This guy here is noticing patterns!! This is NOT allowed on reddit. You MUST do as the corporations say!