[coned88]

There's a lot of good info here as well as some misinformation. As a fellow anxiety sufferer this is all too familiar.

In medicine there an idea of Virchow's_triad [0]. Either there's something wrong with your blood, the blood vessel walls became injured or there is abnormal blood flow.

In young people and even 34 is fairly young. Blood clots aren't all that common. Even in long haul air travel the risk is so much higher in the elderly, obese and those who have had recent surgery.

What I am trying to bring up here is there are other factors that could be at play other than stasis. Could Gavan have bumped his leg into something and not even noticed? Could he have a genetic component that leads to increased clotting? Usually in these cases there is a lot of follow up. Usually the person is put on blood thinners if there's a legitimate cause. Or maybe he really is just so unhealthy that he got a bloodclot all while walking 3 miles a day. I know if I emailed my doctor right now and asked her about this. She would get back to me and tell me that this is a very rare rare case. Usually just getting up to go get a drink every now and then or to go to the bathroom is enough to recalibrate pressure in your lower legs. Many people don't walk 3 miles a day, especially in suburbia. Some do though. I guess I am saying is a lot of people sit a lot. A lot of people don't walk 3 miles per day and something specific to Gavan's physiology may be at play here.

What we can do though is take this as a warning call and thank Gavan for sharing with us. It certainly woke me up a bit more.

* Drink a lot of water.

* Don't eat a lot of sugar.

* Stand when you can. If you have a standing desk. Great.

* Get up and take breaks when you can. Set a reminder. I get up every hour.

* At lunch get out and go for a walk.

* Try to hit the 10k steps per day.

There's also a tool we can use to access the likelihood of DVT. It's the very same tool Primary care doctors will use and it's called the Well's criteria. Here's a interactive calculator http://www.mdcalc.com/wells-criteria-for-dvt/

You should read up on it if interested. There's also the "Primary Care Rule for DVT" http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/1215/p1417.html

Though for this one you need to have a D-Dimer taken which is a blood test.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virchow's_triad

[gavanwoolery]

You are correct - there are so many factors to consider, and I am by no means an expert and would definitely accept being wrong in any given area. The general advice that I can give, that will probably keep a person healthier than not, is to exercise, eat well, and not sit for too long. This goes beyond just DVTs - this is advice for living long in general. :) Even outside of clots, sitting is shown to severely cut back the benefits of exercise (although like all studies, this should be taken with a grain of salt as well). 66 percent of studies are wrong, as they say. The reverse advice goes as well - you should not stand all the time either - this is shown to have adverse effects as well.

And as a minor additional note - my 1-3 miles of walking tends more often towards the low end of that range (especially when I am in a rush to get work done), although I do randomly take longer walks (sometimes as far as 5 miles).

[coned88]

There's a lot and that's why seeing a doctor is so very important. I am actually having an anxiety attack right now after reading your post. You didn't cause it :) but it certainly did stir up some stuff with my anxiety.

For an anxiety sufferer like ourselves. It can be very hard. I have numbness in my left hand, an odd pain in my back and shortness of breadth. This could be a lot of things. Things I'd rather everybody not mention because I know them well. But if I went to the ER every time these things popped up well at one time in my life I'd live there. The probability suggests that I am fine. The probability suggests that after thousands of trials similar to this of which I ended up fine, I will likely be fine here. There's a chance I will not be but it's a chance I need to take.

Wish you the best :)

[gavanwoolery]

I get so many symptoms on and off (which include numbness, aches, shortness of breath, chest pain). The way I bring myself to relax about these things is that I don't worry about them unless they persist for a particularly long time without any breaks in their occurrence. I actually expressed similar sentiments just now in another comment about the pitfalls of worrying too much.