Teenager Alyce Clark suffers cardiac arrests on pill
Alyce Clark relaxing at
home
A teenager who suffered seven cardiac arrests, a stroke and
developed hundreds of clots in less than 24 hours has been told her
contraceptive pill was to blame.
Alyce Clark, now 22 , has just learned three years later that a
daily dose of Microgynon she took for just one month caused
her to collapse at the family home in Cliffe.
The once super-fit, keen horse rider is now urging women to be
more vigilant before taking the drug which could have so easily
have killed her.
Alyce, who lives in Chancery Road, is calling for GPs to make
patients more aware of possible side effects and dangers and for
blood tests to be carried out before being prescribed the popular
Microgynon.
She said : "They kept trying to tell me I had some mystery blood
disorder and because my symptoms were so severe it could not be put
down to the Pill.
Alice was treated at the
Medway Maritime Hospital
"But after coming out of hospital I started to do some research
and I just new it had to be down to it."
Alyce's harrowing ordeal started in January 2010 when one
evening she stumbled down the stairs and blacked out.
Little did she know that over the next few hours her heart would
stop seven times and her parents, Roger and Freda, were to be told
to prepare for the worst.
"I was told that if I had been a few years older I would have almost have certainly suffered brain damage" – Alyce Clark
It took paramedics
almost an hour to get to her to Medway Maritime Hospital as she had
three cardiac arrests on the way.
She was rushed to resuscitation where her heart stopped another
four times.
A CT scan revealed hundreds of clots had travelled from her leg
to heart and then to both her lungs.She lost a total of five pints
of blood and was hooked up to 12 drips.
She said: "There was blood coming from everywhere. It was
even seeping from my drips.
After spending four days in intensive care and more than a week
on the ward Alyce was allowed home where she has made a remarkable
recovery.
She said: "I was told that if I had been a few years older I
would have almost have certainly suffered brain damage. And it
helped because up until then I was healthy. I didn't drink, smoke
or take drugs."
Alyce has been on the blood thinning drug Warfarin ever since
but she is hoping to be weened off in the next few months.
It was last month that specialist from University College London
have now ruled that her chronic condition was caused by her oral
contraceptive.
Microgynon's manufacturer is reported as saying the drug only
slightly increases the risk of clots.
27/11/12
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