Alan

My name is Alan. I am 35 years old and other then having undiagnosed FVL I was in good health.

After getting a tetanus shot my left arm became swollen. Within 4 days my arm had filled with blood clots. When a ultrasound was performed the hospital rushed me into surgery. Four days of operations followed and I was lucky enough to keep my arm.

I was taking lovenox shots to the stomach and warfarin. Currently I am on 12 mg of warfarin. The INR readings I get vary which is a great concern to me. I don't know why I had a level of 2.6 INR while taking 10 mg of warfarin only to have my last test results at 1.7. The doctor has increased the level to 12 mg to try to get the levels back between 2.0-3.0.

The clots may have been reduced but they can still exist in the veins so I have been told to stay on warfarin indefinitely. I asked the surgeon if there are degrees of Factor 5 Leiden but no one was able to answer this. I still get numbness in my hands easily leading me to believe that there are still clots clogging the veins. The doctors said to watch out for swelling, cold feelings and numbness. The surgery was in November 2009 and I am trying to get another ultrasound of my left arm 4 months later to see if they can detect any left over clots that have not been completely disolved.

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