Daily Archives: October 24, 2018


Blood Clots – Don’t Avoid the Symptoms

I was asked by a friend to explain how an acquaintance had died suddenly from a blood clot. This is overwhelmingly due to blood clots in veins below the waist forming a clot which breaks loose and lodges in the lungs. The name is venous thromboembolism (venous thrombo=clotting, embolism=traveling). It is an important and deadly condition.

The number of people having clots form in their legs is estimated at 900,000 per year and the pulmonary embolism results in estimates of up to 100,000 deaths yearly. The causes were described by one of the most famous physicians of the 19th century; he was Rudolph Virchow (1821 to 1902), a German pathologist. He described the three predisposing factors: Slowed circulation, increased clotting…