How Many People Get DVT While Not on Blood Thinners?
Out of 900,000 annual U.S. cases of DVT, how many patients are not on Coumadin, a potent prescription blood thinner?
Are Compression Stockings on Airplanes Needed to Prevent DVTs?
Shouldn’t ALL people on an airplane wear compression stockings to prevent a DVT?
Sitting cramped in an airplane for many hours can cause a blood clot to form in the leg.
If you’re familiar with deep vein thromboses, then you know that a piece of one can spontaneously break off and quickly travel to the lungs, cutting off blood flow. Death can occur rapidly.
“Dehydration, especially during plane trips, can cause the blood to be thicker,” says Steven Elias, MD, a vein specialist with Englewood Health in NJ.
Thick blood is more likely to clot. A DVT most often develops in the lower leg, but they can also develop behind the knee and in the upper leg.
A person can have a deep vein thrombosis without any symptoms.
Young adults on plane trips are not immune to these blood clots.
One way to offset this problem is to keep hydrated while on the airplane: with water or juice, not alcohol or soda!
The latter two types of fluids have a dehydrating effect.
You should hydrate before the long airplane trip, not just during, even if that means having to get up several times to use the airplane’s restroom.
What about compression stockings for even younger, healthy and fit adult flyers?
Shutterstock/Lentpjuve
Dr. Elias explains, “Over the counter or prescribed graduated compression knee-high stockings can also help maintain good blood flow in the veins.
“I feel it is important to wear these on long plane or car trips. The business traveler should be aware of these simple preventative measures.”
In other words, you need NOT have blaring risk factors for DVT to be a candidate for wearing compression stockings while on an airplane. This advice applies to healthy fit people.
DVT Doesn’t Discriminate
Fit and healthy people can develop a DVT during long airplane rides — especially if they drop their guard and end up immobilized in the seat for several hours engrossed in computer work, reading or sleeping.
However, wearing compression stockings while traveling by air does NOT offset the need to keep hydrated and to avoid staying inert for long periods.
Don’t remain seated for longer than an hour, and while seated, move the legs frequently. Do all you can for DVT prevention.
If you have leftover TED hose from a previous surgery, don’t use these on an air flight, says Dr. Elias.
He explains: “TEDs are used for bedridden patients in the hospital/nursing home. To prevent blood clots for air travel/car trips, patients should wear gradient compression stockings (knee high) and not TED stockings.”
Next time you’re on an airplane, check the airline’s magazine that should be tucked in the pocket of the seat in front of you; most airline publications include exercises one can do to help prevent deep vein thrombosis.
Dr. Elias is a leading name in venous disease, minimally invasive vein disease therapy and clinical vein and wound research. Dr. Elias lectures about all aspects of venous disease nationally and internationally.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Freepik.com, onlyyouqj
Can Sitting Too Much Negatively Affect Your Mental Health?
If you sit a lot every day, this not only can have very bad effects on your physical health, but also mental health. But there’s something you can do.
Can Starting Exercise in Middle Age Help Fight Heart Disease?
Are you middle aged, worried about heart disease and wondering if it’s too late to begin exercising to help protect your heart?
If you’re of middle age and have always been sedentary, it is nowhere near too late for an exercise program to help prevent, or slow down the progression of, heart disease.
This is the conclusion of a study from Heidelberg University.
Though the study conclusion was that the study subjects who’d exercised all their lives were 60 percent less prone to heart disease, the report also states that individuals who started an exercise program in middle age cut their heart disease risk by 55 percent.
If you’re 50, get going. Start working out. The study says that a “more active physical activity pattern” is definitely associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve noticed an “elderly” (face appearing over 65) individual at the gym with a remarkable physique and physical abilities — who then tells me he or she didn’t begin working out until they were over 50!
Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images
And yes, they WERE over 65! So don’t ever assume that once you hit 50, taking up exercise is pointless.
Perhaps you know someone over 65 who began developing cardiac symptoms, and was subsequently diagnosed with coronary artery disease severe enough to require surgery.
Suppose that individual was never into exercise. Now imagine going back in time when that person was middle aged, perhaps 52, and they began an exercise program of both aerobic activity and strength training.
Now fast forward 15 years. Can you imagine that they’d have the same level of heart disease?
Exercise is a powerful weapon against heart disease.
How to Get Started with Exercise for Heart Disease Prevention if You’re Middle Aged
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#1) Embrace the concept of doing two forms of exercise: cardio and strength training, even if you’re “weak.”
There is no such thing as being “too weak” to lift weights or do aerobic activity. Start with a pair of three-pound dumbbells or a tension band. Start with a brisk walk down the street.
And there is no such thing as being “too fat” or “clumsy” to exercise.
Rui Almeida
#2) Alternate cardio days with weight days.
#3) Start out slowly and lightly. Do not rush. You have plenty of time.
#4) If a personal trainer approaches you in the gym and points out that you’re doing something incorrectly, then listen, apply the new information and be grateful someone caught your mistake.
#5) Write out major goals and break them into small goals. Of course, one of your major goals will be to fight or prevent heart disease.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Source: naturalnews.com/019682_disease_heart_exercise.html#ixzz2Lr9FffnA
Does Excessive Sleep Raise Heart Disease Risk in Athletes?
Even athletes and gym rats can have a habit of getting too much sleep. It’s already known that excess sleep in general isn’t healthy.
How Women Should Exercise to Lower A-Fib Risk
Are you past menopause and interested in using exercise as a way to lower your risk of developing atrial fibrillation?
Should Filter Be Placed for ALL Heart Surgery to Prevent a PE?
Why aren’t more people after coronary bypass surgery given an SVC filter to prevent any blood clots from becoming a pulmonary embolism, since a DVT can suddenly break off and travel to the lungs?
How the Stressed Caregiver Can Get Energy & Strength
As a caregiver to a challenging elderly family member, you need to have all the energy, stamina and strength you can get. Here is how you can get it all.
Do Intense Gym Workouts Undo the Effects of Sitting Excessively?
If you get in a hardcore workout every day but then sit for many hours at work or home, you’re still prone to the harm of excessive sitting — “the sitting disease.”
Exercise, even if strenuous, does not cancel out the adverse effects of all the sitting you may be doing at work or at home.
Those negative effects include a higher risk of heart disease, blood clots, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.
First author of Northwestern Medicine study, Lynette L. Craft, urges even those who exercise like warriors to take lots of mini breaks when sitting before the computer.
Prolonged sitting, even in people who meet recommended exercise quotas, also raises the risk of congestive heart failure and some cancers.
In the Northwestern study, women spent an average of nine hours a day sitting, even though many were physically active at least 150 minutes per week.
Just like smoking is harmful even if you run five miles a day and do your kettlebell swings and dumbbell lunges, sitting many hours a day, just as well, is harmful to your health.
Though working out provides numerous health benefits, the reversal of the sitting disease is not one of them.
That’s because excessive time in a chair is an independent risk factor for various health ailments.
Gym Tips to Reduce Sitting Time
See if you can get through an entire gym workout without sitting, with the exception of maybe changing shoes and of course, doing seated exercises.
Freepik.com
But do NOT plop down after a crushing set of deadlifts, squats or weighted walking lunges.
If you have a sit-down job, your goal should be to avoid sitting as much as possible. That includes between weightlifting sets.
In fact, if a strength training exercise involves sitting, you may want to exit the equipment between sets.
Another way to reduce sitting time at the gym is to stand between bench press sets. Many people sit on the bench.
Stand while drinking water and using your phone.
At home stand as much as possible while watching TV and using your phone.
At work get up every 45 minutes and walk about.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
Top image: Freepik.com/ pressfoto
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121031111616.htm
Your Child with ADHD Might Really Have Sleep Apnea
Did you know that the symptoms of ADHD greatly overlap the symptoms of sleep apnea?
It’s possible your child was misdiagnosed. (more…)
