Yes, I have had blood clots in my lungs, they are called pulmonary embolisms, google that and you will come up with tons of info. I guess the degree of seriousness depends on how big and where the clots are located. As a nurse in my previous lifetime, I have taken care of various degrees of seriousness with PE's...I had one guy who had normal oxygen levels, what brought him to the hospital was sudden breathlessness. He had a clot in one lung and it wasn't that big, but he had to go on anti coagulants for about 5 days and then onto Coumadin, an oral anticoagulant for some time. On the flipside, I have seen some very serious PE's...Sometimes doctors will go in, like they are going to do a cath of the heart, but instead go into the pulmonary artery and its branches and remove the clots (or inject very powerful clot busters similar to those used in heart attacks) that way if becomes that serious. In my case, it was a shock to the docs, I had what was called micro emboli throughout my lungs, found incidentally via a lung biopsy. My oxygenation was hurt by this, I am now on Coumadin indefinitely because of this as well as for not being very active due to my vent and muscle disease. The docs do this to prevent this from happening againI pray that your friend pulls through okay, he is in my thoughts...this is a serious problem and is not to be taken lightly, but docs can do so much now.
Please keep us updated, again, your friend is in my thoughts and prayers.
Here is a link to get you started about pulmonary emobolisms...
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic490.htm
Hugs, Jenn <img src="i/expressions/rose.gif" border="0">
