Deep Vein Thrombosis – Patient Life

Transcript

“Control of your weight and activities are an issue. If the more weight you have, the more force the blood from your legs is fighting to go back to your heart. And so yes, controlling your weight, whether it’s through diet or exercise would be actually beneficial and yes, some level of physical activity, two or three times a week, walking for half an hour, isn’t that much to ask, I think for most people. So those are things that you can do before even the diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis. Once you are diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, something that is clear in our minds, the biggest risk factor for developing a deep vein thrombosis is having had an episode of deep vein thrombosis. So recurrent DVT thrombosis happens to be a really bad problem. And that is because if you have one episode of deep vein thrombosis, that vein where the clot is large in is damaged for life.

And like I told you, if that inner lining of the vein is damaged, that makes that segment prone to have a second clot again. So when you have one diagnosis of DVT, you want to use compression stockings to keep the blood moving to that area. And the benefit has been shown to be for two years after the diagnosis, meaning that when I made you after your first diagnosis of DVT, I’m going to recommend stockings for two years, at least. And I’m going to tell you, it would be ideal if you’ve used them for life, because as a simple, it poses some expenses because some companies charge outrageously high cost to this, but you can actually do enough research to find if your insurance would cover it, or you can find actual even websites that will sell them for less, but those are, and if you don’t have the money for the stockings, you can just use a compression wrap.

Just anything would be better than just leaving the legs without therapy. So once you’ve been diagnosed with a problem and a physician is recommending a blood thinner, that can be the difference between life and death. So it’s not that, you know, I ran out of money to pay my drugs this month because that’s what’s keeping you alive, keeping you away from a clot going to your lungs. So if you are prescribed, I will tell you that’s a medication that you have to be religiously with for your future. And that’s basically it. Increase your mobility, blood thinners, compression stockings, and that can work wonders for the future quality of life of these patients.”