Among the running/tri magazines in the US, there is one actually serious massmarket title not trying to push sales with tits, uncritical equipment reviews, and derivative lists and articles.
In the last Running Times, there is an article on a study showing 85% of the people or so who died recently from air embolisms (air bubble gets into blood stream and gets lodged in the brain/lug/leg) are endurance athletes.
The article recommends three ways to try and prevent this problem on long flights -
Get up and walk the aisle during the flight
If you can’t do that, do some muscle flexing excercises
Take an asparin (if you can - I can’t ) before the flight for it’s mild blood thinning effect.
Normally the ‘endurance athlete’ is less suceptable to illness/injuries, but this is one condition where it seems to be a weakness.
Anyway, nice article Running Times and keep up the good work.
I believe that is what happened to Buffalo Bill McDermott, the most winning Catalina marathon champion ever…He is also now one of the best AG triathletes out there , and all after his airline heart attack, after the Everest challenge…
Just a small correction, I’m sure the article is talking about thromboembolisms, when a blood clot forms, usually in the leg and can then move to the lungs. One of the biggest risk factor for these is long periods on imobility such as long flights. I’d be interested in reading the article, my dad a multiple time comrades finisher is now takes warfarin after a couple DVTs and a pulmonary embolism.
I had a pulmonary embolism a couple years ago, and I can attest that it is NOT something that you ever want to experience. Mine wasn’t related to air travel, but I was laid up for several days with a bad case of the flu. As Scottgo described, it started with a clot in my calf, and then the clot eventually dislodged and traveled to my lungs. I went from being a very fit triathlete one day to not being able to walk across a room without getting out of breath.
Another tip that I would suggest is to wear ted hose to maintain circulation in your legs on long flights. I know, they’re super-dorky, but definitely worth it if they prevent another clot.
A micro-fraction of embolisms occur during long flights. Unless you’ve got a clot that just needs some pressure to cause some problems, you are not going to get an embolism on your long haul to Tokyo. Consider that 90%+ embolism patients have had a graft, infarction or have pulmonary embolism disease. If you were perfectly healthy but were trying to induce an embolic event, it would take at least 5 days of bed rest.
…and I believe aspirin does not have any effect on “blood thinning”. It does have a mild effect on platelet/coagulation, which some consider to be the same as “blood thinning”, which it is not. And I’m not a doctor - but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express recently.
Good to correct. Scuba divers get the bends (air embolism) when they fly too soon after diving. Athletes get the blood kind. Check the older threads we have been over this a few times and decided to wear TED hose is one of the smart thing frequent long distance flyers do. When I worked ER we had a few people come in and eventually die from PE, very bad and serious thing to deal with. If you have one, there is a better chance than average you may have another 1 year,2 years or 5 years down the road. See your and listen to your MD. Do not “cheat” on their advice.
Semantics as far as site of action.
Aspirin inhibits platelet function.
Blood thinners (like coumadin/warfarin, aka rat poison) inhibit clotting factors (proteins made by the liver that form clot).
Normal clotting depends on both platelet and clotting factor activity. Most patients who have had venous clots/pulmonary embolism will be on coumadin.
It’s not hard to believe that endurance athletes might be at higher risk for DVT, with a combination of microtrauma to the leg veins from competition, a generalized state of inflammation from competition, and immobilization during air travel.
The difference is where the drugs work. Asprin is an antiplatlet drug while heparin and warfarin act on the clotting factors that are in the blood serum. Without going into too much depth Asprin is used mostly on the arterial side, while other anticoagulants work in both the arterial and venous circulation. When you are toaling about pulmonary embolisms you are dealing with the venous side of things since any clot in an artery will get lodged in either a small artery or a capillary and never make it to the lungs.
The article discussed 300 that the researcher was able to get info for over the last couple of years. There may be more. I think if you read the article and get th name, you can see the study and get the methodology.
and then we flying home. This race is already up at pretty high altitude and is a 7 day stage race with an marathon on day 4 or 5. Did that have an impact on things?
