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Comment by jawngee | Hacker News Reader

I was diagnosed with a DVT three weeks ago. The perfect storm of sedentary lifestyle (though I do work standing up about 66% of the day), overweight, smoking and falling asleep for 10 hours straight on a flight from Vietnam to NYC with my leg folded underneath me.

The only symptom was a charlie horse feeling in my left leg the next day. No swelling, no redness.

My clot was controversial though, apparently they weren't 100% sure it was a DVT or a clot in the muscle close to the deep vein. We are treating it like is a DVT though. I'll be on blood thinners (Xarelto) for the next 3 months. Already quit smoking, am walking twice daily.

The flight back to Vietnam was a little anxious though.

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I try to get up every 1-2 hours and walk around and do some exercises when I'm on a long-haul flight. I'm that weird guy doing squats and other exercises at the back of the plane. If there is no room outside I use a bathroom. I also drink a lot of water, which causes me to get up anyway because I have to go to the bathroom more often.

Glad I'm not the only one who does that. I've found stairs (to first class) to be helpful for incline based exercises.

Yep, I should add in that flights are a very common catalyst for DVTs. So common that they often call it "economy class syndrome" (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15...) - my clot was possibly catalyzed by a flight but that is not yet conclusive. Needless to say, try to move around as much as possible on a flight (even it means wiggling your toes or legs), and stay healthy (you are much more likely to get a DVT from a flight if you are already unhealthy).

If you're interested this paper has a very detailed look at how flights affect us

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21981017

I read it when I had access years ago.

If there's a possibility that this came from a flight then you may want to add that to the story. When was the last flight you took prior to the 2 weeks of the pain starting?

Will do - there was about a one week gap between the flight and the first symptoms. So, I'd say the flight likely accelerated something, if it wasn't the direct cause. However, I also think that my sitting for very long periods of time was also a contributing factor regardless (I should add in that the chair I have been using recently is a little long in the base and sometimes cuts off my circulation slightly)

It may be possible. How long was the flight? IT just seems unlikely since I have had doctors ask me have you flown in the last 24 hours.

Flight was 7 hours, but in two shifts (5 hours and 2 hours, with a 2-3 hour layover).

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