I was just so sore that I didn’t know what to do. It was a Saturday today so I couldn’t go to the doctors but I was getting so much pain in my side and my back that it was sore to breathe and was making me dizzy. I decided to go to the accident and emergency department at the hospital. I had everything going through my head from Pulmonary Embolism to Heart Attack because the pain was over on the left side. Having a little bit of knowledge about what can result from having APS can sometimes be worse than not being informed.
I know how to deal with panic attacks but this was pain and it wasn’t as if I could just take a pain killer and it would go away. I didn’t want to trouble anyone but also couldn’t stop thinking about the ‘what ifs’. So I ended up going to get myself checked out.
The A+E staff were very understanding and very helpful. They checked my heart and blood pressure. Then they took my bloods to check my INR and also to do a D-Dimer test which checks if there are any clots in the body. I don’t know how this all works but it came back negative. My INR result came back at 1.7 which the doctor said was too low. My current warfarin dosage pattern is 12/13/13 so the hospital doctor suggested taking a fragmin injection on top of the warfarin while my INR takes time to come back up. I still had 3 injections left at home so he told me just to use those. He said I should get my bloods checked again at my own doctors during the week.
So how do I feel now? I am not getting much pain any more. So, was it the fragmin or was it all in my head? I don’t understand how the fragmin could change this so quickly so it must have been in my head?
I record an overview of my Warfarin treatment to help me keep a note of my Warfarin dosages and INR levels. I also record other relevant information such as starting on other medication or changes to my diet. It’s not an easy job getting my INR levels on track. Hopefully, mapping it out like this will help me understand better and be able to see more clearly if the fragmin makes a difference or how much is down to my emotional state at the time.
The most annoying thing is that nothing happens quickly so I can only make slight changes to try and map out what affects my INR and what doesn’t. How do other people manage this? Or are most people like my friend who has a very stable INR and doesn’t suffer all this hassle?