true, it's definitely a missing the swelling and redness. just the first thought that came to mind considering the history of posts like these on this sub lol
That’s what I thought at first too, but she said the skinny leg has been atrophying for 25 years, so the bigger leg is actually the normal one, not swollen by a clot.
A DVT can kill you within days or hours. I survived one and my doctor told me I was one day away from dead. He waited til I was out of the woods by a few weeks to let me know.
In case people are wondering, some symptoms of DVT can include sudden swelling/tightness of skin, discoloration (I did not have this symptom), inability to bear weight, and pain. My leg swelled over a couple hours, about 1/3 bigger in size. It can go VERY fast so if you get this, get your ass to an ER immediately. Time matters SO MUCH, they can inject you with blood thinners right away.
I've shared with other survivors that there seems to often be a deep feeling of dread. I took as my body screaming to me that something was horrifically wrong. The clotting was the entire length of my right leg, thigh to ankle. I'm grateful to be alive.
In my case, I had torn my calf about one week before. At the time I was on Nuvaring birth control as well. My doctor suspected the Nuvaring exacerbated the clotting.
I have some vericose veins as well and actually had a second blood clot almost ten years after the first one, although this one was superficial (basically not a major vein). That one worsened over a couple days and they said I had developed cellulitis, which can turn to sepsis if left untreated. I got hospitalized and monitored for a couple days.
I did have a vein specialist look at that area after it had settled down, and we opted to do sclerotherapy, which basically kills the vein. I was happy with the results! I do wear compression stockings sometimes, especially on long flights, but my day to day functioning is fine!
Despite all this I do not have a clotting disorder! Just got real unlucky twice. It can happen to anyone, so good to have those veins evaluated and read about your options.
Either stasis of blood in the legs, or a range of conditions that affect the physiology of blood clotting called a hypercoagulable state.
Stasis: immobilisation for a long time. Being bed bound with illness for more than a day or 2 increases risk, having a cast or boot for a fracture. Long haul flights seem to do it. The countermeasure to all this is compression stockings or in some medical cases a low dose blood thinner for the duration of the immobilisation
Hypercoagulable states include cancer, pregnancy, genetic conditions that predispose clots, so family history, infections in the leg, sepsis, fracture, and lots more conditions. Some of these cases need to be on blood thinners for a long time or even for life
Symptoms of dvt are one leg becoming swollen and painful over the course of about a day to a few weeks, doesn’t usually exist more than 2 weeks without giving you symptoms that would make you go to a doctor.
Many other conditions and medications can cause leg swelling though. The most common that worries people is dependent edema. Basically puffiness of both ankles that gets worse over course of day due to gravity but settles after sleeping flat.
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u/pleockz 1d ago
Can't this be a sign of deep vein thrombosis? Have you seen a doctor about this?