I turned into a water balloon
Posted on: October 15, 2005 | Posted in: My Story
I recently took a trip overseas. Now, this is my fourth year in a row, so I’ve got a pretty good idea what is and is not normal for me while travelling. When I arrived in London, my feet looked like overstuffed sausages. This was NOT normal.
Of course, the first thought is, “OMG, what if it’s deep vein thrombosis and I’m about to die of a pulmonary emoblism?!” Well yeah, I’m kind of a nerd about medical trivia, so that really is more or less what I actually thought. However, I remembered that my feet had actually puffed up a bit a day or so before I left, so it probably wasn’t caused primarily by the flight, and DVT rarely affects both legs, so the fact that both feet were puffed up was a good sign…
I went through my vacation with swollen feet. I felt tired early in the evening. I didn’t feel like drinking (or eating) a lot. I bought compression wraps, and while they’d help temporarily, my feet would be puffed up again within hours of taking them off. The severity of the swelling did subside over the course of the three weeks I was traveling, but it didn’t go away, and it was accompanied by some really unusual, extreme muscle fatigue/cramping after minimal exertion as well.
Not good, overall. And still proving to be a problem when I returned home (although my feet did not regain their full, glorious, sausage-like proportions on the flight back). People I knew from home commented on my appearance, as politely as possible.
I scheduled an appointment with the doctor a week after my return.
technorati tags: hypothyroidism, hypothyroid, thyroid, edema, health, medical, mivox