Clotting

Well, I had some tingling in my right arm for a while, which is not uncommon at all for me.  Then it lasted for about 3 hours one day so I mentioned it to my dr (who is a new dr since my old one stopped taking my insurance) and he said with my history of clots he would want to get it checked out.  I had also been having more headaches, so he looked through my chart and saw that the MRI I had done in 2005 was reported as a small aneurism which he was surprised about because my dr then (the dr of death) never sent me to a neurologist for follow up.  Well I had a ct scan of my head which didn't show anything, so he wanted me to get an MRI/MRA done just to be sure, but it could wait like a week. Then I went in the next day to get an ultrasound of my right arm and the lady took an extra long time at the end going over one section in my bicep a lot...then had me wait in the waiting room afterward.  She came out and told me that my dr would be calling me.  So I said, 'you can't really tell me what's going on, can you?'  and she goes, 'well, umm, you have a clot in your bicep area (and demonstrated with about a 3 inch section on her bicep) so your dr will have to call you for instructions.'  Then I left and went to walgreens because my brother was at my house and was going to put up Christmas lights on the second story of our house but I didn't have enough icicle lights to cover it all.  Anyhow, got a call from the dr while I  was at walgreens and he said the ct of my head showed a partial blockage of my right sinus cavity as well as a small polyp in the right sinus and that I did have a blood clot in my right arm and they didn't know if it was new or old but they had to treat it like it was new, so I needed to go to the ER asap.  I think I actually said, 'are you serious?  Because I feel totally fine.  Are you sure I can't just go home?'  Anyhow, I went in and was admitted for 3 days.  The hematologist was having trouble figuring out what to do with me because forming a clot while on coumadin means I 'failed' coumadin therapy so basically it's not working.  Normally they'd just put me on a lovenox injection and send me home, but since my platelets dropped so rapidly the last time I was hospitalized and on a Heparin drip they determined that I have Heparin Induced Thrombocypenia (basically, an allergy to heparin) and Lovenox is a direct heparin derivative. Well the options for blood thinners other than those 2 are very slim and the next logical one would be an injectable called Arixtra (which I was on for a short time after I broke my back) but it has only been studied and recommended for short term treatment.  Like 1-2 weeks tops, so my hematologist basically did some guessing at what dose I should be on for a longer term treatment (in my case 2 months) and prescribed that.  I have about 10 days left of month 1 of injections and then I'll start month 2.  I believe I go in for my follow up with the hematologist next week and he will be trying to get me back on coumadin after this 2 months of Arixtra is up.  He basically explained that when someone clots while on a blood thinner, it's like their body is flaring and needs to be calmed down with a stronger medication (in my case Arixtra) and once it's calm again, they attempt to put the person back on coumadin.  I'm not sure if they intend to monitor this clot in my arm before switching me back or if it doesn't really matter since they can't actually go in and get rid of it anyway. 

Also while I was in the hospital they did the MRI/MRA of my head which showed no signs of an aneurism from 2005 which my dr explained to me that it is possible there never was one since the technology of these test has advanced so much in the past 8 years, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that it was a God thing.  :)