breast surgery : Pulmonary Embolism
Pulmonary embolism is a condition that occurs when an artery in your lung becomes blocked. In most cases, the blockage is caused by one or more blood clots that travel to your lungs from another part of your body.
Most clots originate in your legs, but they can also form in arm veins, the right side of your heart or even at the tip of a catheter placed in a vein. There are other rare causes of clots as well.
In most cases, a pulmonary embolism isn’t fatal. Still, pulmonary embolism is a leading cause of hospital deaths and an increasing threat to passengers on long airplane flights. You can take measures to help prevent pulmonary embolism. And when pulmonary embolism does occur, treatment with anti-clotting medications can greatly reduce the risk of death.
Symptoms
Pulmonary embolism symptoms can vary greatly, depending on how much of your lung is involved, the size of the clot and your overall health – especially the presence or absence of underlying lung disease or heart disease.
Common signs and symptoms include : -
* Sudden shortness of breath, either when you’re active or at rest.
* Chest pain that often mimics a heart attack. The pain can occur anywhere in your chest and may radiate to your shoulder, arm, neck or jaw. It may be sharp and stabbing or aching and dull and may become worse when you breathe deeply (pleurisy), cough, eat, bend or stoop. The pain will get worse with exertion but won’t go away when you rest.
* A cough that produces bloody or blood-streaked sputum.
* Rapid heartbeat (tachycardia).
Other signs and symptoms that can occur with pulmonary embolism include : -
* Wheezing
* Leg swelling
* Clammy or bluish-colored skin
* Excessive sweating
* Anxiety
* Weak pulse
* Lightheadedness or fainting (syncope)
* Fever
Causes
Your heart is composed of two upper and two lower chambers. The upper chambers (the right and left atrium) receive incoming blood. The lower chambers, the more muscular right and left ventricles, pump blood out of your heart. The heart valves – which keep blood flowing in the right direction – are gates at the chamber openings.
Embolus India, Blood Clot offers info on Deep Vein Thrombosis India, DVT India
Pulmonary embolism
Pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot becomes lodged in a lung artery, blocking blood flow to lung tissue. Blood clots often originate in the legs.
You have two lungs, one on each side of your heart. Blood is constantly being pumped from the right side of your heart to the lungs and back to the left side of your heart. In your lungs, blood picks up oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism. Blood vessels called arteries take the oxygen-rich blood to tissues throughout your body, and veins bring oxygen-poor blood back to the heart. Capillaries – the smallest blood vessels – connect the veins and arteries.
Clots that form in the veins throughout your body can dislodge, travel through the bloodstream to the right side of the heart, and then enter the pulmonary arteries, where they may cause a blockage. A blockage can occur in any small artery, but the lungs are especially vulnerable because all of the blood in the body passes through the lungs every time it circulates. Most often, a number of clots will shower your lungs during an episode of pulmonary embolism; it’s unusual for just one clot to take place.
Understanding blood clots : -
A blood clot is a plug of platelets – colorless blood cells that repair injured blood vessels – enmeshed in a network of red blood cells and fibrin, a type of protein. Clots normally develop to help stop bleeding after you’ve been cut or injured, but sometimes clots form for no apparent reason.
A blood clot that forms and remains in a vein is called a thrombus. A clot that travels to another part of your body is an embolus. Occasionally other substances, such as pieces of a tumor, globules of fat from fractured bones or air bubbles, may enter the bloodstream and become an embolus that blocks arteries.
Most clots that cause problems originate in a vein in your leg or pelvis. The affected vein may be near the surface of your skin (superficial thrombosis) or deep within a muscle (deep vein thrombosis, or DVT). Clots in superficial veins usually aren’t serious and often clear on their own. But clots in the deep veins may detach and migrate through your bloodstream to your lungs.
The majority of clots in the legs begin in the veins below the knee, and it’s uncommon for these clots to detach. But sometimes clots may extend up into the thigh, and that’s when they tend to become dangerous. It’s not known what causes clots to detach, and it’s not possible to predict which clots will break off or when.
Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/medical-tourism-articles/knee-replacements-and-international-flights-tips-on-controlling-swelling-2947389.html#ixzz0vS7wMboy
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
: breast surgery : breast surgery