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Comment by knz | Hacker News Reader

Did they do a D-Dimer test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-dimer)? My understanding is that this can be more reliable than ultrasound (subject to misinterpretation). I'm sure a doctor would tell you to do both if a PE/DVT is suspected.

I hope you have recovered well. My wife nearly died from medical negligence related to a DVT/PE - it can be life changing if it becomes a PE.

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Recovery is a weird word. The anxiety you face after you have one can be nearly as crippling as what you went through in the first place (this can probably be said for anything high trauma though). What I can say is that you learn a lot about blood in general after you have had one and things like Vitamin K, green food, etc. It did take 2 ultrasounds on the leg to get an OK to come off thinners, but I still feel there is a window of unknown which healthy and unhealthy people go through in the clotting of blood that is severely under treated and was a great case of where knowledge would have saved a trip to the hospital. I don't in anyway say do-it-yourself-at-home kits with ultrasound and machine learning algorithms should replace medical advice but more and more people are dying from blood clots (whether it be food related, environment, clothes(?)) that it warrants a better look - and I am up for anything non medicinal - especially ones which can cause excessive bleeding like current thinners. If I had a friend who had swollen calf muscles and pain and told them to try something at an urgent care facility to determine a clot was present and it was low cost for all parties involved ... win/win.

Actually, D-dimers alone are used in a low-probability clinical setting, because they are extremely sensitive. When you already have DVT symptoms, the standard practice is to directly go to ultrasound, which is a much more specific exam. And in case you already have PE symptoms, then most MDs would directly go for the spiral CT. http://www.aafp.org/afp/2012/1115/p913.html

US > D dimer to rule in VTE, as many things can cause the latter to be elevated [1]. We almost always go straight to imaging when there's even a remote possibility of DVT.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23948628/

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