She shared her story as a warning for others.
When many people wake up in the morning, they take their daily prescription medication and continue on with their day. But a new case is showing just how important it is to take a close look at what you’re putting in your body and the side effects that medicine has. For one woman, a common birth control shot triggered life threatening side effects.
Marilyn Wightman thought losing weight would ease her sudden mysterious shortness of breath in 2009. But it didn’t. And then, she fainted on the stairs.
“The first question my doctor asked was, ‘Are you taking Depo-Provera?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ and he’s like, ‘Oh that’s it.’ I’m like ‘really, this is what we’re doing?'” said Wightman.
He put her on blood thinners, but she was in and out of the hospital until last year when her doctors told her that without surgery, she had a 10 percent chance of living five years.
“A very small fraction of patients, however, develop a response to the clot where the clot breaks down, but then you start to develop scar-like plugs that obstruct the vessels and make it harder for the blood to be pumped through the lungs,” said UW Medicine Cardiothoracic Surgeon Michael Mulligan.
In a six hour procedure that left an intense scar, Dr. Mulligan removed 15 clots mixed with scar tissue from Wightman’s lungs. First, he had to raise her oxygen level, lower her temperature and metabolism, stop her heart and drain her blood.
“You work very quickly to expediently tease out the these clots that are multi-branched without puncturing the vessel, which is wafer thin,” said Dr. Mulligan.
Wightman says she would not have taken Depo-Provera if her doctor had told her about the blood clot risk.
“I’m telling my story because I want at least one woman to ask the question, when your doctor is trying to give you a new drug – ask the question, ‘What are the side effects?'”
Dr. Mulligan says as long as Wightman stays on her blood thinners, her clots should not return. He says it shouldn’t be long before she has her normal life back again.
