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Irish Mirror

National

Sarah Barrett

Health warning issued to anyone who has had Covid in the last year

Covid-19 HSE

Researchers have uncovered that Covid-19 can leave people with a potentially dangerous complication.

Experts have warned Covid-19 increases the risk of life-threatening blood clots - for at least a year after infection, but it is rare.

Blood clots can cause strokes, pulmonary embolism (PE), heart attacks, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and in the worst cases, death.

The study published in Circulation, was based on an analysis of 48 million health records.

Blood clots can be very serious and need to be treated quickly.

The research found the virus may have led to an additional 10,500 heart attacks.

The HSE says DVT (deep vein thrombosis) is a blood clot in a vein, usually the leg, and can be a very serious condition.

They can occur in the veins of the calf, thigh or pelvis. DVT can be dangerous.

Blood clots in your veins can break loose, travel through your bloodstream and get stuck in your lungs.

This is called a pulmonary embolism.

Researchers said people with mild or moderate forms of Covid were also affected.

Scientists from Universities across the UK, did point out that the blood clot risk to those who catch Covid is small and reduces over time.

The study authors suggested preventive strategies, such as giving high-risk patients medication to lower blood pressure, could help reduce cases of serious clots.

The research involved studying anonymised electronic health records across the whole population of England and Wales from January to December 2020.

In the first week after a Covid-19 diagnosis, people were 21 times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke - conditions which are both caused by blood clots blocking arteries.

This risk then dropped to 3.9 times more likely after four weeks, researchers said.

Calf pain may be muscle-related diagnoses, there are some potentially serious ones , like a blood clot or claudication. (gettyimages.ie)

Previous studies looked into the impact of Covid-19 on blood clotting in people hospitalised with the disease.

The risk of blood clots in the veins was 33 times greater in the first week after a Covid-19 diagnosis.

This dropped to eight times more likely after just one month.

But this new research proves that even those who are not hospitalised are at risk of developing blood clots.

Although their risk is not as great as for those who had severe disease and were hospitalised.

The HSE has advice for preventing blood clots and recommends to keep moving.

Even if you’re sick in bed try to move your legs and feet every 90 minutes.

Make sure to drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration.

You should seek medical help immediately if you have one or more of these symptoms:

swelling or pain in one leg or calf
warmth or redness in a leg
shortness of breath or rapid breathing
chest pain, which may be worse when you breathe in
a cough or coughing up blood

Professor Jonathan Sterne, an epidemiologist at the University of Bristol, who co-led the study, said: “We are reassured that the risk drops quite quickly – particularly for heart attacks and strokes.

"But the finding that it remains elevated for some time highlights the longer-term effects of Covid-19 that we are only beginning to understand."

Thrombosis Ireland urge that 1 in 4 will die from causes related to thrombosis.

Blood clots do not discriminate between men & women, young or old. They can strike anyone at any age. Here are some shocking facts about thrombosis:

1 in 4 people will die of causes related to thrombosis
1 cause of preventable death in our hospitals
60% of blood clots happen as a direct result of a hospital stay or in the 90 days after discharge.
It is the primary cause of direct maternal death in our maternity hospitals
1 in 5 cancer patients will get a blood clot

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