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Q. My 60-year-old girlfriend had sudden severe lower back pain and leg pain and swelling. She was diagnosed with sciatica by a doctor in the emergency room and sent home with Valium and Percocet.
One week later the pain and swelling was so intense she could not get out of bed. I called the ambulance to take her to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with blood clots in both legs and immediately had an emergency thrombolysis, in which the clot buster tPA is injected into the clot through a catheter.
She is still hospitalized. Doctors sometimes make a potentially fatal misdiagnosis.
A. Blood clots in veins are indeed potentially lethal and frequently misdiagnosed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are affected by this condition each year (American Journal of Preventive Medicine, supplemental April, 2010). A blood clot traveling to the lung can cause a pulmonary embolism that can kill people.
Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) can help break up a blood clot but must be used carefully since it can cause uncontrolled bleeding.
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