A warning about BC and blood clots: My nightmare

smshelton24 · 10-20-2009, 04:10 AM

I'm sitting here finishing a breathing treatment and I thought it a good a time as any to get a warning out there. I have tried a number of different birth control pills, in order to best suit me and my PCOS. Well, last Saturday I woke up and I was having mild chest pains and trouble breathing. Since it was mild, and I'd missed 2 work days prior (thanks, Glucophage) I decided to try and go to work. Well, I went in at 7:45am and by 4:30pm my manager called 911 because it was getting a lot worse.

The paramedics said my vitals looked ok other than a rapid heartbeat and slightly elevated blood pressure but they told me because my chest hurt to go to a hospital to get checked out. My fiance picked me up from work, and drove me to an ER near our apartment. We sat in the waiting room, (with CHEST PAINS, mind you) for over 2 hours before being told it would be another 4 hours before we saw a doctor.

At this point my breathing was back to normal for the most part, although I was still in pain we decided that we would go home and if it didn't go away the next day we would go to the doctor. We got home around 8pm, my fiance tucked me into bed with pillows to prop me up, due to the pain I couldn't lie flat, and he went to sleep. By midnight, I was in so much pain I couldn't breathe or move without screaming, I thought I was having a heart attack. My fiance drove me back to the ER and due to the lack of motivation of the non responsive staff there, he decided it would be best to try a different ER. Just sitting in the car straight up was agonizing, I spent the whole time hyperventilating, (I couldn't breathe because of the pain)and screaming while my poor fiance just held my hand and tried to talk me through it.

We arrived at the other ER finally, the nurse did a quick assessment, forcing me to lie down while he did an EKG on my heart. I was crying and screaming because it hurt and all he could say is that he couldn't give me pain medicine until the doctor saw me. We sat in the ER waiting room from 12:30am to 3:30am and finally we were taking back to a room. They did blood test, and x-rays and we waited...and waited..and waited..Mind you this WHOLE time I am writhing in pain, while my dear fiance just sat with me and tried to comfort me. The doctor finally came in at 7:30am (Yes, that's right, 7 hours after arriving at the ER) and said he wanted to get a Catscan for better imaging. Thank God, he FINALLY approved pain killers. So we went for the Catscan and came back, and waited some more..about an hour and a half later the doctor came back and told us, that I have fluid in my lungs and he's waiting on a 2nd opinion about an obstruction in my lung.

After yet again, MORE WAITING, he came back and said that the obstruction was a blood clot in my lung. Caused by the Birth Control Pill I was taking, they couldn't determine that it started anywhere else, so they had to assume it began in my lung. He then told me I'd have to stay in the hospital for a few days because blood clots can be fatal and that I'd have to start taking blood thinners. They moved me to ICU for monitoring and that's where the nightmare continues.

The first night I was there, after the original pain killers wore off, I was screaming in pain and all the nurse would tell me is that the doctor only approved pain meds every 6 hours so it would be another 2 hours before she could give me ANYTHING. I suffered in hell for those 2 hours. They put me on STRONG pain medicine. I mean strong enough that not 30 seconds after they put it in the IV you feel like you've been hit by a ton of bricks. That was the only way to calm my breathing and make me calmer, to knock me out. It was that way for about 4 days. My fiance and my mom took shifts to stay with me at the hospital so I was never alone, (thank God again here because I HATE hospitals).

Starting at about the 5th day I wanted to go home, even though I wasn't 100 % yet, but they wouldn't let me leave until my blood thinned out to a level of 2, meaning my blood had to be twice as thin as the normal level. Throughout this whole time nurses coming in every few hours. A pain killer that wore off after 3 hours and wasn't allowed another dose for another 3 hours, was really getting to me. When a nurse found me screaming for my life in my room, in tears he called the doctor and got it approved for pain meds every 4 hours. That made things A LOT easier.

To sum it all up, I have been banned from taking ANY kind of birth control,(the ring, the shot, the pill, the patch, ect.) for the rest of my life because now I'm susceptible to blood clots. This means my GYN will have to find another way to supplement the Gluco and keep my hormones in check. I stayed in the hospital exactly a week and was released last Saturday, (10/17/09) but I'm still not allowed to go back to work for another week. Now I'll be on blood thinners for the next 6 months, meaning if I even bump my head we have to go the ER because it could cause bleeding in my brain. Not to mention, I can't use razors, which is a nightmare because I shave 90 % of my body and we can't afford an electric razor right now. And to add to it, I'm having to wake up every 6 hours to take 5 different pills, and complete breathing treatments with a nebulizer. I still can't breathe deep, and I get winded very easily.

Oh yea, and before I left the hospital my doctor who was TOTAL butt the whole time, stopped by to let me know my blood test came back that I'm diabetic and slightly anemic. MORE GOOD NEWS!!!

So ladies, take heed, those risks they talk about on the commercials are VERY real. As much as I hate to admit it, I am walking living proof of it.

NeetaLiegey · 10-20-2009, 10:03 PM

I'm sorry to hear that a stupid pill did all of this to you. Which one were you on? I've been taking Yasmin, but since me and my husband saw the lawsuit commercial on TV, he has said that he does not want me taking it anymore. I called the Endo that I go to and asked to be put on another pill, and he wanted to put me on Ortho Tri Cyclen, but I told them that I would think about it. Right now, I'm not on anything but not trying to get pregnant, so I don't know what to do about that.

I hope you feel better and update us on your health in a couple of days to let us know how you are doing.

Marvinsmomma · 10-20-2009, 10:27 PM

smshelton I'm glad you survived. I never knew how dangerous the bc could be for some people until my old room-mate developed blood clots in her eye. Like you she can never take the pill ever again. Again, I'm glad you survived.

smshelton24 · 10-21-2009, 05:13 PM

Thank you for the replies, ladies. I have taken all different types of birth control but just recently I've been on Balziva - a generic type of Ov-Con. I have take Yaz but it was awhile ago. I've never been more scared in my life. I thought I was having a heart attack.

And yesterday we had a really big scare. My gyn who is not the dr who treated me in the hospital gave me depo provera the bc shot, but then I found out that it's not supposed to be taken by anyone who currently has a blood clot.

Since then I've been having wierd tingling and pains in my left arm and chest that radiates down to my finger tips. I'm avoiding going back to the hospital after spending a week there, but last night I was afraid to go to sleep, afraid to have a heart attack in my sleep.

Oy, when will this end???

japauley · 10-21-2009, 06:25 PM

I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles

That's terrible and having bad care makes it even worse!

While reading your story, I was wondering if you were at the hospital I work at. The wait is about the same (took 3 hours just to get into a room at midnight while screaming and holding my abdomen) and the drs and nurses were so impersonal it was sickening. They kept putting off pain meds until they were discharging me (with a LARGE ruptured ovarian cyst that they saw on my ct scans).

The scary thing is, I'm considering going back on the pill (my dr strongly recommended it) since I'm still not pregnant and they don't want to let my lining keep building up

After reading your story (and hearing about a co-worker's friend who had a spinal stroke from the pill and is now paralized from the chest down), I don't know if I should go on the pill again. I was on it for 10 years without too many problems, but now I'm not so sure.

NeetaLiegey · 10-22-2009, 07:32 PM

Well Japauley, I don't know what to say to that. I think you should do a lot of research on the birth control that he's trying to put you on. I went to a Neurologist yesterday, and he basically said that all birth control are prone to do the same things regardless of the kind, and nurse at the Endo where I go told me that she's on Yasmin and hasn't had any problems. And she doesn't plan on getting off of Yasmin even with all the lawsuit against it. I think you should do what your gut is telling you.

smshelton24 · 10-23-2009, 10:55 AM

I completely agree with ya, Neeta. Because just like the commercial states, it's not for everyone but in the same sense it doesn't mean that EVERYONE will have these bad results. Unfortunately, they don't have a test to show who would be affected. Thank God, I lived, because it's hitting me now how close I was to NOT coming home. I've kind of avoided thinking about so it doesn't upset me, playing it off that it's no big deal. When in reality its a VERY big deal.