SpineWhine
02-19-2006, 05:06 PM
Howdy! Just when I thought recovery was sailing along nicely, I wound up in the hospital.
I learned Friday that my breathing pain was a pulmonary embolism (PE, aka a blood clot in lung). I also show signs of fluid in my pleural lining. I was admitted to the hospital Friday, and was released this afternoon (Sunday). I will follow up with additional testing on Monday, but on an outpatient basis.
The thing that scares me most: being on the anticoagulants lovenox, heparin, and coumedin. My surgeon made it clear to me that I was not to even have an aspirin or ibuprofen while healing, as we need the fusion area to clot in order to heal properly. Now that I am on thinners, I fear the impact this will have on my fusion and healing. Does anyone have any experience with being on these meds post op? For how long? Did it prohibit fusing at all, and if so, how did you handle?
Side note: my surgeon was paged by ER to consult with him prior to putting me on heparin. He said ok, since it was more imminently important to control the PE than to worry about my back. But that is the short term approach. With my clotting history and having theblood clotting disorder, it has been brought up that this event may be the one that makes me have to stay on antioagulant drugs for life. ERGH. I am so scared. I will call the surgeon office tomorrow to make sure he coordinates with my PCP in managing this, but it would really make me feel better if I could hear some more input from people on here as to whether others have had similar issues.
I have gone from a happy go lucky healer, to pretty high anxiety this past week.
I learned Friday that my breathing pain was a pulmonary embolism (PE, aka a blood clot in lung). I also show signs of fluid in my pleural lining. I was admitted to the hospital Friday, and was released this afternoon (Sunday). I will follow up with additional testing on Monday, but on an outpatient basis.
The thing that scares me most: being on the anticoagulants lovenox, heparin, and coumedin. My surgeon made it clear to me that I was not to even have an aspirin or ibuprofen while healing, as we need the fusion area to clot in order to heal properly. Now that I am on thinners, I fear the impact this will have on my fusion and healing. Does anyone have any experience with being on these meds post op? For how long? Did it prohibit fusing at all, and if so, how did you handle?
Side note: my surgeon was paged by ER to consult with him prior to putting me on heparin. He said ok, since it was more imminently important to control the PE than to worry about my back. But that is the short term approach. With my clotting history and having theblood clotting disorder, it has been brought up that this event may be the one that makes me have to stay on antioagulant drugs for life. ERGH. I am so scared. I will call the surgeon office tomorrow to make sure he coordinates with my PCP in managing this, but it would really make me feel better if I could hear some more input from people on here as to whether others have had similar issues.
I have gone from a happy go lucky healer, to pretty high anxiety this past week.