As runners, you know your body better than most people do. You are more sensitive to feel when something is off. Running through aches and pains is a “normal” thing for runners. Although not always the best thing. When your instincts fail you and you learn that there may be more going on in your body than you realize, all you know about yourself goes into question.
A couple of years ago, I was running stronger than I ever had. I had just completed my first 100 miler earlier that spring, along with a 12 hour race that fall. But that November I noticed a change but I couldn’t quite place what it was. The first thing I had noticed was a change in my energy levels, which I just brushed off to stress. I had been working with my GI doctor for colitis that had gone into remission and a routine checkup with blood work had signified an increase in my body’s inflammation levels, but my colitis issues were in check and I was feeling fine. By mid December, I notice it was getting harder and harder for me to run. There was tightness in chest and my heart rate would get super high for jogging and slow paces. Because I couldn’t pin-point that something was specifically wrong and I was a healthy person, I kept pushing through.
Over the Christmas holidays I found my energy to be lacking and needing to take naps during the day. I took a couple weeks off running thinking maybe I’d started to have some overtraining symptoms. I tried running again and and I couldn’t go a quarter mile without struggling to breathe. So I made appointment with my general practitioner. He thought it could be a lung infection or some sort of virus. As a runner your HR is usually pretty low, during my exam mine was “within normal limits.” He did a chest X-ray and it was fine. I later found out that blood clots cannot be seen on a chest X-ray. He put me on a steroid pack and an inhaler but by the next week I couldn’t tell much of a difference.
I ran, really I just walked, my long run of 10 miles that weekend with a couple of friends. I felt completely depleted energy-wise but the runner mentality in me was going to push through. That’s what you train to do, right? There was nothing causing me pain telling me I should stop. I had seen a doctor, I had done all the right things. I told myself it was just trouble breathing, kinda like a chest cold.
Up to this point I had no issues with either legs until I noticed that next day that my jeans were tight only on one leg. I shrugged it off but thought it was odd. Monday morning I went for a run, and got a sharp pain in right calf so I stopped and did all the runner things – stretching, foam rolling. I thought I just pulled something. That night after talking with my mom who is a nurse and telling her what was going on, she had me measure both my calves only to find that one side was over 3 inches larger than the other. The next morning I was to have a checkup with my GI doctor and was planning to get her thoughts on it. Once she saw me she sent me straight to the emergency room.
The emergency room doctor was super nice and said they would do a few tests and go from there. After the tests were completed, the doctor came back in to see me and her demeanor had completely changed. She said that I had two blood clots in my leg, what’s called a Deep Vein Thrombosis and a multiple bilateral pulmonary embolism. That my lungs were sprinkled with small clots and they needed to admit me. I was in so much shock I had to ask her to repeat everything she told me. I’m a healthy runner. How could this happen? This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.
They immediately put me on IV blood thinners and eventually transitioned me to an oral blood thinner. The doctor’s initial thoughts was that this was caused from my birth control which they took me off of immediately but they did some genetic testing to confirm whether I had any blood disorders. After almost a week in the hospital they sent me home, where I spent another week using a walker until my leg healed and I was able to walk strong again.
The genetic testing came back all clear so the cause was confirmed that it was due to my birth control so I should be ok to go off the blood thinners after about 6 months. After given “all clear” from doctor was allowed to start walking every day. Eventually I got the ok to slowly start running again. It felt amazing to be able to run without having trouble breathing. I had taken that for granted. The road to recovery wasn’t as fast as I’d hoped. I had taken a while to get my energy back but I was fighting to get back to the stronger runner I was before this happened.
I eventually began training again and set my sights on my second 100 miller that fall. But on blood thinners was all new territory. Recovery time increased, I had to carry a first aid kit at all times when I was running in case I fell due to increased bleeding from the blood thinners.
By June of that year my husband and I had settled into Virginia and I was having a checkup with my new pulmonologist. He had concerns about my calf still being noticeably larger than my other one. So he ordered another Doppler ultrasound. There was some new clot showing along with the old chronic clot from January. So I was put on Lovenox shots, stronger blood thinner, for about a month and switched to a different oral blood thinner. There was concerns whether the birth control was still the cause of my blood clots. So my doctors did more testing and yet, nothing was found. As frustrated as I was to be told that the cause was more than likely the birth control but still not know for sure, I was still allowed to run as long as I had no pain.
When discussing doing a 100 with my doctors they couldn’t give me yes or no answers. Let’s face it, there’s not many studies out there on whether someone with a history of blood clots has done ultramarathons. So I saw a sports medicine doctor and got her input. She did testing on my lung capacity and it was all within normal limits. I was training strong and all my tests showed I was doing well. So there wasn’t anything saying “no you shouldn’t do it”. So I went into Grindstone going over all possible scenarios with my crew – I needed to take my medication at certain times, wear compression sleeves, carry a first aid kit with me in case of any cuts. There were a lot more logistics going in with my health concerns.
My race went through successfully, thanks to my supportive family, my great crew, , all my doctors that ensured I was in the best condition to be able to accomplish this. Throughout this experience I learned I had to be an advocate for my own health. I couldn’t trust my instincts all the time. As a runner sometimes your stubbornness to push through pain can override your instincts that something isn’t right. I also learned that despite these hardships with my health, I wasn’t going to let these things keep me from being the runner I used to be.
Blood clots can go untreated in athletes due to the adaptations their bodies have made to their sport. When you compound that with the risk of clots from birth control, women need to know what to look for. I had been on birth control for over fifteen years and never had an issue. The chance of a woman getting clots from their birth control is very low, but know your risks and educate yourself. I learned a lot from the National Blood Clot Alliance website: https://www.stoptheclot.org/
