Shots shots shots.. oh not those kind

After getting my 2nd diagnosis of cvst in a little over a year and being put on blood thinners for life I knew life would be different. I have to watch out and not bump my head on anything and make sure to be extra careful not to cut myself. Bruises appear easier so my clumsy self needs to watch out more. The list goes on and on but another important one, if you get pregnant you must stop taking the pills and switch to injections. I immediately knew I did not want to get pregnant and switch to shots! I already have two kids so I’m good. Ha!

Baby number 3 was a complete surprise. I didn’t know till I was 13 weeks along already. It’s assumed this is why I got another cvst. My symptoms came back a few weeks before this and I had to get mri’s and mrv’s to confirm another clot had formed. Two again actually one in my venous sinus veins and one in the jugular again. However by the time I realized I was pregnant, I already had gone in the mri machine 3 times! All with contrast injection. While getting an mri will pregnant isn’t all that dangerous, the contrast isn’t recommended. I had no idea how this baby was doing and I was freaking out about it. Of course the doctor can’t get you in right away. I was stressed for 3 weeks until we finally had the appointment.

I had to call my other doctors too to let them know what’s going on and get switched to the dreaded blood thinner shots. They were crazy expensive even with insurance! My pills $10 a month, these shots $220 a month! I wasn’t working at the time because of having my 2nd cvst and short term disability was a nightmare to get them to approve anything. Thankfully my hematologists office helped me out on getting the medicine I needed. Even though... shots ugh.

Finally at the baby doctor appointment we found everything was fine with baby and I was 16 weeks already. I just needed to keep doing the injections until a few days prior to delivery.

I tried to give myself this shot. Just stick in the needle it’s fine. Nope not fine. I couldn’t do it to myself. That left my hero boyfriend to cause me pain everyday twice a day for the foreseeable future. He hates it but knows it’s needed and does it for me.

During my first cvst while in the hospital, they were bridging me over from IV heparin to Coumadin pills. Part of that process was lovenox injections for three days, because of this I already knew this medication burned like lava being injected into my body. At least I was prepared for that. I didn’t know that these lovely shots caused some ugly bruises and painful knots to form under the skin.

I searched for any advice on how to make it less painful. The most common one I found was to ice the area before and after the injection. This really didn’t help me but it worked for a lot of others. Another was to inject the medicine very slowly. Some people take up to 5 minutes to completely inject the medicine. I’m not sure if this works or not because I chose to deal with the awful burn versus having a needle sticking out of me for 5 minutes. I couldn’t do it. Also going across the stomach to a new spot every time. I did try this but found the front and especially the left side hurts worse.

The best way I found for myself is laying down and using my right side love handle area. There a spot there that doesn’t hurt or burn as badly as everywhere else. It’s been the number one spot to go but it has bruised a little and developed the knot. When this happens I reluctantly go to the left side for a few injections before returning to the good spot. We do inject slowly but it’s under a minute to finish. Overall I haven’t bruised as badly doing it this way and the pain has been way less. Everyone is different though and I’m sure has there own “sweet spot”.

Hopefully this will help someone just starting out in the fun lavanox I mean lovenox journey. I know one thing I’ve learned is no more kids. This is for sure it for me because I do not wish to repeat this process ever again. It might of been harder because of all my head problems too but my hats off to the women that do this more then once. You’re amazing.