D-dimer test for blood clots - has anyone had this?

[kitpuss]

Last week I had some chest tightness and my GP took a blood test called D-dimer to check out whether I might have a blood clot.
The normal range of results is 0-180 and mine came back at 395. Apparently values can be raised during pregnancy, so they made me have another test to see if it changed, and the GP said that if it stayed the same it would be OK but if it went down that might mean I had a clot.
It went down to 363, and I spoke to another GP who said it's gone down which is what we expected, so it was OK. I told her what the other GP had said but she was still saying that it's OK.

I haven't had any symptoms for a few days but the GPs saying different things has confused me a bit and I am still a bit worried to be honest.

Has anyone else had experience of this? I've tried looking the test up on the web but not really found much out.

Thanks

Forgot to say that the first GP said that if I hadn't had been pregnant they would have sent me to hospital straight away with a result of 395, which did freak me out a bit, and makes me think it is potentially quite bad.

Hi kitpuss,
I've had it as I have had several blood clots. I take it this is a potential lung clot or PE. Stuff you read about this can be scary but just to say, I have had 2 and I'm doing well now...which is not to say you shouldn't keep an eye on things very closely.

When I originally had a D-dimer I wasn't told the number, just that it definitely indicated a clot. However, there are problems with the test: for instance, I haven't had one since even when doctors suspected clots because apparently once you've had one clot, the test will always come out high. So I can imagine that pregnancy might send it out of whack.

PEs / lung clots are relatively unusual so I wonder why your GP went for this test - do you have a family history of clotting? That was what got me diagnosed, otherwise I seemed too young to have one (I was 29 at the time). The symptoms I had were chest tightness, difficulty breathing normally (I put this down to my asthma playing up at first), and also pain in my back, almost at the side, so that I couldn't rest against that side.

I hate to say it but GPs are not the experts in this area and diagnosis by D-dimer is not an exact science. So if you continue to have any chest tightness, feel your breathing is laboured or have back pain, I would get checked out again. Your best option then is probably to go to A&E, because then you will (eventually) be seen by a haematologist who will know more. There are other tests that can be done - one is the VQ scan but this involves injecting dye to see if if shows a clot, and I'm not sure that is compatible with pregnancy.

Clots do get treated in hospital so if you were found to have one then yes, you would need to go to hospital. However, while they can be serious, don't panic - once diagnosed they can be treated with injectible blood thinners which are fine during pregnancy (I'm on them now) so it is a fixable problem. But don't be fobbed off by the GPs - if you are at all worried, go to hospital.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much for that. I was surprised that the GP did a blood test, I thought they would just listen to my chest and tell me to go home and be a good girl, all I was looking for was some reassurance really!
My dad had a PE, but the GP had already decided to do the test before I told her that, so I think maybe she was just being extra cautious, but has just succeeded in making the situation more complicated.

My dad didn't have any symptoms with his PE, it was just picked up on a scan, so I think I am probably worrying about it more because I know that people can have them without any symptoms.

And being pregnant makes the whole thing more confusing, because it is usual to get the odd bit of breathlessness etc when you've got a nearly full grown baby moving around inside squashing your lungs!

Thanks for your advice though, very helpful and reassuring.