[Jess]

I was just reading through the heart attack thread and hoped someone here might benefit from an experience I had in October.

I'm a generally healthy forty two year old who's had a very rough year or so; divorce, loss of business, wrecked race car, etc. I do smoke (much less now) and drink more than I should, also cutting back.

Anyway, I had a pain behind my knee that was becoming increasingly worse over time. Like most men, I ignored it. After about a month, I was having a tough time walking upon waking up each morning. The pain was now pretty much along my whole left leg but being in construction and getting older, I just chalked it up to old age and hard work. In hindsight, I was an idiot. I let it get to the point where I was almost crawling to the bathroom in the morning but, hey, it felt better after moving around a bit so I continued to ignore it.

Well, I went out to visit my parents around this time and they immediately noticed that I was hurting. Thankfully, they insisted that I see their doctor before I left. Long story short, my visit with the doc lasted about twenty seconds before I was in the ER with all the lights and sirens.

I had had a huge blood clot in my leg (deep vein thrombosis) that had been causing the pain. It had "broken" free and managed to get into both of my lungs (pulmonary embolism) which is really bad. Every doctor I encountered during my six day stay in the hospital told me four in ten people with what I had drop dead before they realize they're sick.

Moral of the story, guys, is don't ignore unexplained leg pain!

I'm on blood thinners now for a few more months.

I never felt that bad, certainly not like I was on death's door; only pain in my leg. They tell me I was very ill!

It's a bit hard to take this as seriously as I would cancer or a heart attack since I had never heard of it before and I'm told it usually strikes older people but now I'm forced to.

Jesse