What not to do for dvt?

If left untreated, about 1 in 10 people with a DVT will develop a pulmonary embolism. A pulmonary embolism is a very serious condition which causes:

Both DVT and pulmonary embolism need urgent investigation and treatment.

Seek immediate medical attention if you have pain, swelling and tenderness in your leg and develop breathlessness and chest pain.

Read more about the complications of DVT

Each year, DVT affects around 1 person in every 1,000 in the UK.

Anyone can develop DVT, but it becomes more common over the age of 40. As well as age, there are also some other risk factors, including:

The combined contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) both contain the female hormone oestrogen, which causes the blood to clot more easily. If you're taking either of these, your risk of developing DVT is slightly increased.

Read more about the causes of DVT

See your GP as soon as possible if you think you may have DVT – for example, if you have pain, swelling and a heavy ache in your leg. They'll ask you about your symptoms and medical history.

It can be difficult to diagnose DVT from symptoms alone. Your GP may advise that you have a specialised blood test called a D-dimer test.

This test detects pieces of blood clot that have been broken down and are loose in your bloodstream. The larger the number of fragments found, the more likely it is that you have a blood clot in your vein.

However, the D-dimer test isn't always reliable because blood clot fragments can increase after an operation, injury or during pregnancy. Additional tests, such as an ultrasound scan, will need to be carried out to confirm DVT.

An ultrasound scan can be used to detect clots in your veins. A special type of ultrasound called a Doppler ultrasound can also be used to find out how fast the blood is flowing through a blood vessel. This helps doctors identify when blood flow is slowed or blocked, which could be caused by a blood clot.

A venogram may be used if the results of a D-dimer test and ultrasound scan can't confirm a diagnosis of DVT.

During a venogram, a liquid called a contrast dye is injected into a vein in your foot. The dye travels up the leg and can be detected by X-ray, which will highlight a gap in the blood vessel where a clot is stopping the flow of blood.

Treatment for DVT usually involves taking anticoagulant medicines. These reduce the blood's ability to clot and stop existing clots getting bigger.

Heparin and warfarin are 2 types of anticoagulant often used to treat DVT. Heparin is usually prescribed first because it works immediately to prevent further clotting. After initial treatment, you may also need to take warfarin to prevent another blood clot forming.

A number of anticoagulants, known as directly acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs), may also be used to treat conditions such as DVT. These medications include rivaroxaban and apixaban, and they've been shown to be as effective as heparin and warfarin with less serious side effects.

You'll also be prescribed compression stockings to wear every day, which will improve your symptoms and help prevent complications.

Read more about treating DVT

If you need to go into hospital for surgery, a member of your care team will assess your risk of developing a blood clot while you're there.

If you're at risk of developing DVT, there are a number of things you can do to prevent a blood clot occurring, both before you go into hospital. These include temporarily stopping taking the combined contraceptive pill, and while you're in hospital, such as wearing compression stockings.

When you leave hospital, your care team may also make some recommendations to help prevent DVT returning or complications developing. These may include:

The bad news: DVT can lead to serious illness, disability, or, in severe cases, death.

Additionally, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a spike in the rate of blood clot patients coming into hospitals.

“I would say in June or July of 2020, we started to see a large number of patients coming to the emergency room with blood clots, either with clots in the legs, or clots in the lungs,” says Chadi Alraies, MD, MPH, a cardiologist at the Detroit Medical Center, adding that infection with the COVID-19 virus sometimes triggered the production of antibodies that caused inflammation and resulted in blood clots.

The good news: DVT is both preventable and treatable. One simple step you can take right now to lower your risk is to change your diet.

"Some foods do increase the risk for blood clots," says Steven Masley, MD, the author of The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up. On the flip side, he says, adding certain other foods to your diet can help prevent DVT.

Below are seven dietary tips to fight DVT.

Dehydration can cause your heart to work harder to pump blood through the blood vessels to the muscles, according to the American Heart Association. To stay well-hydrated, women should consume an average of 91 ounces (oz) of water from all beverages and food daily, and men an average of 125 oz, according to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine guidelines.

“I recommend a lot of hydration, at least 1.5 to two liters a day of fluid liquid,” says Dr. Alraies. “But we recommend them not to be carbonated or high carbohydrate drinks.”

One way to gauge if you’re on track is to check your urine. If it is a pale yellow color or clear, you are probably drinking enough, per the Cleveland Clinic. If it's amber-colored or darker, you're probably not and should increase your daily water intake.

Moderate amounts of red wine or purple grape juice daily helps keep blood platelets from sticking together and forming clots, thanks to powerful antioxidants called polyphenols in purple grapes, according to a review of previous studies published in the Journal of Nutrition.

Alraies stresses that wine should be consumed in moderation, however.

“One glass of wine a day won't do any harm,” he says. “But beyond that, it affects the liver, which is the factory for all anticoagulation and blood thinning in the body.”

Garlic is thought to have many health benefits, including possibly breaking up harmful clusters of platelets in the bloodstream, according to research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The best way to reap that benefit from garlic, the research shows, is to crush the raw cloves to release their beneficial compounds, then eat them raw, oven-roasted, or boiled for three minutes or less.

It’s important to talk to your doctor about how much garlic you should eat if you are taking a blood thinner already, as garlic could interfere with the medication’s effectiveness.

The same foods that in excess cause plaque buildup in blood vessels, increasing the risk of heart disease, can also increase the risk of DVT, Dr. Masley notes. That means you want to stay away from unhealthy trans fats, sugar, and excess salt, according to the American Heart Association. "These are all foods that increase inflammation," Masley explains.

At first glance, these culprits may not be obvious in packaged foods, so study ingredient labels carefully. Sugar comes in many forms — honey, molasses, corn syrup, brown rice syrup — and you want to limit your intake of all of them, Harvard Health says. Sugar can be listed under aliases, too — lactose, fructose, barley malt, malt powder, ethyl maltol, and fruit juice concentrate, to name just a few.

Trans fats may be hidden in the ingredient label as partially hydrogenated oil and hydrogenated oil. Check Nutrition Facts labels and choose the option with the least amount of sugar, sodium, and trans fat per serving.

Consuming olive oil at least once a week reduced platelet activity in nonsmoking obese adults (those with a body mass index, or BMI over 30), a sign that this oil may lower the risk of a blood clot, according to a National Institutes of Health–funded study presented March 7, 2019, at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions.

Similarly, an earlier study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that antioxidants called phenols in virgin olive oil helped prevent blood clots. In the study, people who consumed virgin olive oil with a high phenol content had lower levels of a substance that promotes blood clots. So a good DVT food choice would be to forgo butter and dip your bread in olive oil — the virgin kind — instead.

If you take warfarin, an anticoagulant, then foods high in vitamin K, which plays a role in forming blood clots, can interfere with your medication. "Too often, doctors tell patients to avoid all green leafy veggies," Masley says. "Instead, eat leafy greens consistently every day." The important thing is to eat the same amounts of vitamin K–rich foods each day to maintain a consistent level of the mineral in your body.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the recommended average daily intake of vitamin K from foods is 122 micrograms (mcg) for women and 138 mcg for men. For reference, one cup of cooked spinach contains about 145 mcg of vitamin K.

For patients who are on novel anticoagulants such as rivaroxaban and apixaban, no such restriction is in place.

Masley says the saturated fats in full-fat dairy and fatty meats have also been linked with increased inflammation.

DON'T stand or sit in one spot for a long time. DON'T wear clothing that restricts blood flow in your legs. DON'T smoke. DON'T participate in contact sports when taking blood thinners because you're at risk of bleeding from trauma.

A DVT may make it harder for you to get around at first because of leg pain and swelling. But you’ll be able to slowly return to your normal activities. If your legs feel swollen or heavy, lie in bed with your heels propped up about 5 to 6 inches. This helps improve circulation and decreases swelling.

In addition:

Some people with a DVT may need to be treated in the hospital. Others may be able to have outpatient treatment.

Treatments include medications called anticoagulants (blood thinners), compression stockings and elevating your affected leg(s) at different times throughout the day. In a minority of cases, when the DVT is extensive, invasive treatments (catheter-based procedures) may be required.

The main goals of treatment are to:

Anticoagulants (blood thinners)

This type of medication makes it harder for your blood to clot. Anticoagulants also stop clots from getting bigger and prevent blood clots from moving. Anticoagulants don’t destroy or “melt” blood clots. Your body may naturally dissolve a clot, but sometimes clots don’t completely disappear. When they don’t, they usually shrink and become little “scars” inside your veins. Sometimes these “old” clots may result in leg swelling, but oftentimes they don’t cause symptoms.

There are different types of anticoagulants: warfarin, heparin and oral Xa inhibitors. Your doctor will talk to you about the best type of medication for you.

If you need to take an anticoagulant, you may have to take it for only a few months (usually three to six months) or you might take it indefinitely. Your treatment time may be different depending on the specific situations of each individual, including if:

Bleeding is the most common side effect of anticoagulants. You should call your doctor right away if you notice that you bruise or bleed easily while taking this medication.