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How Many People Get DVT While Not on Blood Thinners?
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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?
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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.
Basic exercises to prevent DVT on a flight.
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
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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.
#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
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