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If you cut your fingers while cutting vegetables, you will benefit from an ingenious body system: blood clotting. If a wound to a blood vessel occurs, various messaging substances and specialized cells, platelets, ensure that the precious fluid does not flow uncontrollably. The blood curdles. It groups together to close the gap.
Blood clotting must be finely balanced. If the blood does not clot or only slowly, as in hemophilia, this can be dangerous for those affected, for example, with internal bleeding. If the blood clots too fast or too fast, clots form that can block the vessels. These clots are also called thrombi, the process is known as thrombosis.
Clots often form in the veins of the pelvis or leg. Typical symptoms are swelling of the ankle or leg, the calf can ache like muscle pain, and sometimes the skin turns blue. If the thrombosis is not treated, the clot can be detached and washed in another glass. Possible serious consequences: if the blood clot blocks a pulmonary artery, this leads to a pulmonary embolism. If a vessel in the brain is blocked, there is a risk of a stroke. If a clot enters a coronary artery and stops blood flow there, the result is a heart attack.
Severely ill Covid patients are at increased risk for thrombosis.
Laboratory values, like the observations of many doctors, indicate that blood clotting is too strong in people with a severe Covid 19 course. Therefore, you have an increased risk of thrombosis.
“Deep vein thrombosis of the leg or pulmonary embolism was observed in a third of Covid-19 patients requiring intensive care,” says cardiologist Ilka Ott, chief physician at Helios Klinikum Pforzheim.
In general, severe inflammation can increase the risk of thrombosis, especially if the disease causes the patient to be bedridden. Doctors also believe that the Sars-CoV-2 virus can also affect cells that make up the inner walls of blood vessels, and that can trigger blood clotting. This could explain why coagulation increases in many patients with Covid 19. Therefore, patients in the intensive care unit with the disease receive anticoagulants as a precaution, several German specialists in heart disease told SPIEGEL.
Prevention in mild cases: drink a lot, move enough
Based on Covid 19 patient experience, clinicians have already noted in a consensus document that about one in five has a bleeding disorder, especially those who are seriously and severely ill and who need hospital treatment or even ventilation.
To prevent those with a mild course of Covid-19 thrombosis, it makes sense that patients drink enough water and exercise regularly. Because sitting for a long time with lack of leg and foot movement also increases the risk of thrombosis, it is known from a situation that occurs much less often due to the crown pandemic: when you sit firmly on flights long distance.
