DVT. Redux.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I blew my knee out while walking up a flight of stairs. After a round of visits with the orthopaedist and my family doc, a knee brace, and a week of rest I started up on physical therapy.

PT was going pretty good -- I felt great improvement in the knee AND in both my legs. It was a pain in the butt to leave work for 2 hours in the middle of the day to go to the appointments but things were good and it was necessary.

I wasn't fully healing, even after a solid month of work. There was still a lot of pain, and it was .... all over the place. Outer side, inner side, under the knee cap, tightness in the calf and thigh.

And then, the calf started to swell. I thought it might be edema from not getting enough real exercise. I hadn't been to the gym since before Thanksgiving, so I thought the sitting in the office upright thing was just making me retain water.

My PT and I discussed it, she said that if it were edema, it would most likely be on both sides, not just the one with the injury.

Last Wednesday the pain in the knee and swelling of the calf was finally too much to take for me so we went to the doctor, told him that we thought I had a DVT, and got an ultrasound  which confirmed it.  Let that sink in. I have yet another damn DVT. Long time readers may recall that in February 2012 I had one after I'd had surgery in August 2011.

One DVT is an anomaly. Two is a pattern. And my doctor is sending me to a hematologist to try and figure out why my body is throwing clots whenever it is injured. He said he thinks the knee injury is a direct relation, that my body thinks it needs to clot to fix it.

There are a number or reasons and conditions that cause this. And we'll figure out why I am hyper-coagulating.

In the meantime, back on blood thinners. Shots and pills. Three times a week visits to my doctor's office to get a finger stick and blood test.

And most likely a lifetime of being on blood thinners. Which displeases me greatly for a number of reasons.