Dermot Bannon opens up on serious health scare that left him hospitalised and 'in agony'

Dermot Bannon has opened up about suffering a pulmonary embolism over the summer when a clot worked its way from his leg into his lungs.

The architect felt unwell while on a family holiday to Portugal and initially put it down to fatigue and stress. However, the pain worsened and soon he was "in agony".

Speaking on the Ray Darcy Show on RTE Radio One, Bannon revealed that he suffered the major medical scare while holidaying with his family for a week in Portugal.

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The 52-year-old father of three opened up about suffering a pulmonary embolism in his lungs, that left him in so much pain it made him feel as though he had broken a rib.

Bannon went to the hospital in Portugal soon after, where they told him it was a lung infection.

"I had had Covid three weeks before that, so it was all put down to that," he said. "I got better, the symptoms kind of subsided, flew home, and then a week later - if I'd gone for two weeks' holiday, I would've still been over there - the pains came back - but more severe.

"Lying in the bed, four o'clock in the morning, really sharp pains down my side. I was pumping Nurofen into myself to try and get rid of them."

Bannon visited his health insurer's clinic the next day and was told his lung infection hadn't cleared up. He was sent for a blood test in A&E which showed "that there might be some clotting going on".

"Then they did a CT scan immediately," Bannon said. "I had what was known as a pulmonary embolism, which was a blood clot that came from my leg, had worked its way up, was in my lungs - in both lungs."

The 52-year-old told listeners that had he not prioritised his health, things would have become "worse and worse and worse".

"What happens is if you don't spot it, if you don't do something, the pressure on your heart can cause a cardiac arrest."

He added that he had been putting down the symptoms "to just getting a bit older".

"Part of it was just me feeling infallible - and me feeling nothing can go wrong with me. 'I feel great. I will look after myself. I'm all of these things'."

"It was the week after it kind of really hit me," he told Ray Darcy. "It's one of the biggest killers in Ireland, but nobody knows about it.

"At the moment, the treatment is very heavy kind of blood thinners, which will dissolve the thing."

Bannon told listeners watch out for the warning signs of pulmonary embolisms.

"Swelling or pain in one leg or a warmth or redness in your arm or your leg," he said. "Short[ness] of breath.

"The other one is chest pain, which is what I got. To describe it, it was like a sharp pain, especially when I took a deep breath in.

"And then the last one is if you're coughing up blood. But if you've got a sharp pain in your side and you don't know what it is, or if you're short of breath, go in to hospital.

"If you've any of these symptoms, straight in to A&E."