D-dimer

I don't recognise the numbers you are quoting, as the tests I am familiar with are in ng/ml and would be around 250 for the threshold. (Maybe your test is in mg/l ? ? that would mean a threshold of .25 mg/l ).

Either way, what TGrove says is correct and the presence of a dvt or clot would usually show around 10 times the threshold value. i.e. 2500 ng/ml or 2.5 mg/l. Mine was 2300 ng/ml when the PEs were present (or 2.3 on your scale).

I doubt you have anything to worry about.

This is a picture of the test results.

I don't see anything alarming in those results. It says you're in the normal range from what I can tell. Are you reading it differently? What exactly are you worried about?

I was curious how to do the conversion. at the bottom where I had cropped it because it had personal information. it said it was slightly elevated so I was just worried that it was another clot. I had bilateral pes in November of 2016. Possibly from kicking a door. I was told they where relatively small and in the veins. I did not have normal symptoms of a pe. I just had a needle prick poke in my chest and high BP. Yesterday and the day before I felt the same poke and was a little worried. But I have been off of thinners since May 2017 and have had about 7 cts with contrast due to scares and no pe has popped up. I do take baby aspirin and omega 3 to help with platelets. But I did have other blood work done and my platelets where a little high at 435. But my iron is low and I did have an infection. I just don't want to get another pe.

D-dimers are worthless. If you go in with chest pain, and you have a high D-dimer, you might have a clot. If your D-dimer is low, it's good at ruling out a clot. A positive D-dimer doesn't mean a thing. I've had dozens of D-dimer tests, many of them were high, and many low. They're just not very good at detecting anything.

I wish I knew that answer but do not except to tell you that I still have a small "petrified " clot in one lung that will never dissolve and it does not interfere. But ask your doctor or check more on here!

The doctors have said that my body will absorb them or petrify them using your terms. the worst case scenario would be a pulmonary infarction. my pulmonologist said that neither of them are any bigger than a splinter. But he tends to downplay everything and I have found that every single doctor I have had to see about this has tried to defend the doctor who did this to me even though I've never said a bad thing about that surgeon to any of them. it's just obvious that all the doctors are trying to be very careful that they don't say anything that might make me want to sue the surgeon who did this to me. I'm 57 years old and I really hope that my body can consume these embolisms like your has and not give me any more problems.

I was under the impression that all clots will eventually dissolve. How come yours will not?

Hi Marie,

What is a 'petrified' clot, I cannot find that anywhere. It was the same with amkoffee's cement embolism, that seems to come up as something being actually cemented like my hip.

My pulmonary cement embolism happened when a surgeon was doing a procedure called kyphoplasty on my fractured vertebrae. The cement used to fix my vertebrae "leaked" into a pulmonary artery and then traveled thru my heart and stopped when it got to my lungs. I'm sure it's the same kind of cement that was used to fix your hip. Fortunately the blood is able to flow past the clots (one in each lung).

I think Marie was using the word petrified to describe how her body has handling the clot. The doctors told me that my body will do the same with my clots. I don't think petrified is a medical term. In this case I think it was used merely as a description.

Because it's made of cement and nothing will disintegrate the cement. If the clots had been larger they would have had to go in and physically remove them.

Thank you as you are right! It is not an exact medical term but it is not going anywhere and not causing any problems.

That is really scary Amkoffee. I had an echocardiogram in August, they said that was okay and put the PE down to hip op I worry everyday in case it comes back - have I moved enough, drank enough water etc., As a clot is invisible, you have no idea if you are in danger until it happens.

You seem to have suffered quite a lot, You are still young, I hope you can from now on stay healthy.

I worry all the time of another one. Their not 100% on how I got mine. I don't have any clotting disorder nor on the pill. Could have been from repeatedly kicking a door. But I came off 6 months of thinners in May of 17 and have been ok since. But I still think about it because I did not have classic symptoms eaither.

worrying about it will get you nowhere. but I do know what you mean. I have had a stroke A mini stroke, a DVT and of course this last one, 2 embolisms made of cement . I have been on Plavix for several years following my second stroke and twice this year I had to be on Xarelto in addition to the Plavix . it's crazy the kind of bruising you get when your on that much blood thinner. but I was tested years ago for that clotting disorder and I do not have it.

You don't know the half of it. This has been the worst year of my life, medically speaking. I have been thru hell in 2018. I'm hoping 2019 ends up being as good a year as 2018 was bad.