I do not believe that sitting in a cramped vehicle alone caused his death. Heredity or some congenital condition must be a co-factor, or we’d be hearing of people keeling over from pulmonary embolisms all the time.
Some people are prone to clot for various reasons such as carrying a mutation for certain clotting factors for example. My mother is one of them. She’s suffered from DVTs and SVTs her entire life which is why she’s on the anticoagulant coumadin. Ignoring a DVT is not a wise thing to do.
Well, Jill here’s some pretty scary stats on just how often they happen: Caution: PDF file!
http://www.pitt.edu/~paccm/pdfs/pulmonaryvasculardisease/venousthromboembolism.pdf
5 million deep vein thromboses a year, with a 10 percent rate of pulmonary embolism, with 10% of them fatal? Wow.
This is an excellent summary of the risks of PE, by the way. Along with symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.
He did call the docs. Apparently, he was having severe pain behind his knee, and called the military doctors. They actually told him that he could have a deep-vein thrombosis, and recommended that he seek medical attention immediately.
He refused their advice. A few days later, he was loading equipment and apparently just dropped dead.
Cite.
It is NOT worth taking aspirin on a daily basis unless you have other cardiac risk factors. This is not written in stone, but based on a trial of thousands of British doctors. (The British Docotr’s trial compared male physicians between the ages of 50 and 78 taking 500mg per day of aspirin or placebo over 6 years). It found no significant difference in the endpoints of myocardial infarction, strokes (although these were more disabling in the ASA treated group) or cardiovascular mortality. The Physicians Health Study of US male doctors between 40 and 84 given 325mg/d aspirin (vs. placebo) showed a slight increase in hemorrhagic stroke and an absolute reduction rate for myocardial infarction of 0.4%, that is, four non-fatal heart attacks were prevented by 1000 men taking aspirin for five years.
The British Thrombosis Trial showed no decrease in mortality by taking 75mg of aspirin per day. It also showed a slight increase in hemorrhagic stroke and a slight decrease in non-fatal heart attacks.
In summary, prophylactic aspirin benefits only a small number of men without known coronary artery disease. Expert opinion (a weak form of proof) suggests ASA is helpful in diabetics, though.
All the physical rigors involved means everyone is going to be in pain a lot… soldiers pop aspirin like candy.
Hey Dr_Paprika, do you know of any studies done to see if ASA reduces the risk of DVT? In otherwise healthy individuals, or other populations? My (somewhat halfhearted) searches haven’t turned up anything useful.
Don’t know of any good studies, but aspirin is supposed to be less effective than other methods of preventing DVTs (heparin, LMWH, compression stockings) according to Weinmann EE, Salzman EW: Deep vein thrombosis, NEJM 331:1630-41, 1994.
Will make a more serious attempt to uncover something later. Just got off a 16 hour shift and my head is spinning.
Yeah, I’ve seen some of those. I was thinking more along the lines of use as prophyllaxis for travellers and other relatively normal people in at-risk situations. But don’t go researching for my benefit! Get some rest and enjoy your off time!
So, you’ll write me out a scrip for this? Somehow I don’t think my boss is gonna take it on faith.
[sub]Wouldn’t the Chicken Dance have more blood-tingling benefit than Irish Dance? You’re supposed to hold your arms stiff at your sides in Irish Dance. Perhaps a clinical trial is in order–OTOH, the Chicken Dance might not make it past the safety stage.[/sub]
I had a pulmonary embolism while in hospital for a broken pelvis (I was in traction for 6 weeks). It was quite painful and one doctor told me later that he was somewhat surprised that I survived. I was given TPA (which I believe means Tissue Plasminogen Activator, or something like that) and this dissolved the clot.
There is apparently an inherent conflict between letting wounds heal and keeping an immobilized patient free from coagulation problems. After my PE, I was put on coumadin, and had no further problems. (One orderly would smile and ask “Had your rat poison today?” referring to the fact that coumadin is really the same stuff as warfarin, the active ingredient in many rat poisons.)