Schoolgirl dies after Pill gives her DVT on holiday
A GIRL of 16 died after her contraceptive Pill gave her deep vein thrombosis on a family holiday.
Sophie Murray started having difficulty breathing and suffering chest pains after she flew home from Gran Canaria.
Her mother Shelley Crichton told a coroner’s court that the teenager became breathless in the middle of the night after having a ‘ fit’ in which her ‘lips turned blue’.
The schoolgirl, who wanted to be a paramedic, was taken to hospital but died that day from a blood clot in her lungs.
Dr Richard Prescott said Sophie died of a pulmonary embolism due to DVT – and the oral contraceptive Pill was a contributory factor. He told the Blackburn hearing that
‘All-consuming grief’
the ‘large clot’ was 8mm across and she could have survived had it been found earlier.
The inquest heard Sophie, who was a pupil at Accrington Academy, was using the ‘common’ contraceptive Microgynon. A leaflet accompanying the prescription warned that use ‘increases the risk of developing a blood clot’ and in ‘very rare cases’ a blood clot can form but it is ‘very rarely fatal’.
Joanne Birch, a specialist nurse in sudden deaths, said six in every 10,000 women on the contraceptive pill develop DVT, compared to two in 10,000 without the Pill.
The hearing was told Sophie’s breathing had become worse since returning from holiday in September last year and she was struggling to walk to school or dance, and complained her body was ‘aching’.
Her mother took her to a doctor’s appointment and she complained it felt like she was ‘ breathing through a straw’. Their GP, Dr Par- amundayil Joseph, carried out tests that suggested Sophie had asthma and gave her an inhaler.
However, she later returned on November 5 – three days before her death – to say it ‘didn’t do anything’ and was prescribed a different inhaler and a tablet to help with her breathing before exercise.
Dr Joseph said he had not considered a diagnosis of DVT as she was young, not overweight or a smoker, had no family history of the illness and did not have any swelling or tenderness in her leg.
He said her breathlessness, which was a symptom of the pulmonary embolism, could also be a symptom of ‘many diseases’ and ‘can be similar’ to exercise- induced asthma. He told the inquest that risks associated with the contraceptive usually occur after ‘many years of taking the Pill and also when a woman is a lot older’.
He said: ‘It’s the most common combined Pill. I have prescribed it for the last 31 years and this has never happened until now.
‘She was very active and it’s very rare and very unfortunate.’
Recording a narrative verdict, assistant coroner Derek Baker said: ‘ This tragedy has brought overwhelming grief to Sophie’s family. She was a young girl when she died. The cause of death – pulmonary embolism – is common enough but I have never seen it involving someone as young as this with no other problems.
‘These conditions in a girl of this age are rare but they are a recognised side effect of the Pill she was prescribed and can also be caused by long flights and the immobility associated. If it was diagnosed and treated earlier she would have had a very good prospect of recovery.
‘I acknowledge a tragedy of this scale is going to result in crushing, all-consuming grief.’
This week another inquest found that a 21-year-old teaching assistant died from DVT caused by the Pill. Fallan Kurek, of Tamworth, Staffordshire, died last May.