Usually you ignore if you have a pain in your leg thinking it to be a cramp or a pulled muscle. Sometimes, pain in the leg can be a symptom for a more serious condition like a blood clot in the deep vein of the leg or that we call as DVT. Between the two kinds of blood vessels in our legs seated just below the surface of the skin and deep within the muscles, when a blood clot arise within the deep vein of the thigh, calf or foot, the condition is termed as Deep Vein Thrombosis.
How Does DVT Affect You?
DVT or Deep Vein thrombosis may sound rare but about 300,000 to 600,000 people are suffering from it in the United States. DVT or Deep Vein Thrombosis if not treated on time can lead to serious consequences for a life long time. Not only can it affect the thigh or the leg, often the blood clot breaks loose from the deep vein in leg and travel via circulatory system up to the lungs, the blood clot then blocks the pulmonary artery of the lung. If the clot is large enough the blockage may kill the person instantly. If the blockage is not very large, breathing problems arise due to failure of blood circulation in the lung tissues and improper oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange. This can lead to a cardiac arrest. If the clot is stuck to the deep vein of the leg not only you will have chronic pain, DVT can also lead to crack in the skin. This crack will further cause Cellulitis, a kind of skin infection. The Medical Director of The Centre for Heart and Vascular Wellness and Prevention and The Cardiac Rehabilitation Centre at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif confirm so.
How Painful is a DVT in Leg?
You will feel a constant pain when you have DVT in leg. Whenever you move you will feel pain in leg. It is difficult to identify if you are suffering from DVT in leg since the symptoms are often taken as conditions for other illnesses. Some of the common symptoms of DVT in leg include:
- Swelling in the leg along with constant pain. This is the most common symptom of DVT in leg.
- The pain and swelling will be in only leg registering that only one leg is affected.
- The affected area turns very warm and extremely painful.
- You can guess that you are suffering from DVT if the symptoms worsen. In case of a pulled muscle, the above symptoms tend to face away whereas in case of DVT these only worsen.
When you start to experience pain in your leg you often try the method of elevating your leg for an hour or even overnight. This helps in case you have a muscle pulled. If you are suffering from DVT, the pain will not go away rather become more excruciating. The Doctors have also asked to keep it in mind that if you have a muscle injury in your lower leg, the right side of the calf aches while in aches of DVT, the pain is usually on the back of the calf.
What are the Risk Factors for Developing DVT?
If you are suffering from pain in your leg, you might keep these factors in mind-
- If you have undergone a surgery recently, especially an orthopaedic surgery.
- If you are taking a dosage of hormone medication for hormone replacement therapy or you consume birth control pills high in oestrogen.
- If you have been inactive or immobile for a considerable amount of time. The blood circulates through our body as we function like walking. If our legs are stagnant for the long time, the proper blood flow gets interrupted and tends to form a clot.
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