GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — March is National Blood Clot Awareness Month, and this past year, Corewell Health's Butterworth Hospital has been named a Center of Excellence by the National Blood Clot Alliance.
Blood clots are a very real risk that can change your life in a moment, and after you have one, you're more susceptible to get another within the next ten years.
I spoke with the Vice President of the National Blood Clot Alliance, Erin Vandyke, and Emergency Medicine Physician, Dr. Trevor Cummings, about the signs and symptoms to look for to stop blood clots as early as possible.
"It's, I think, imperative for us to continue to provide resources to our communities," Vandyke said. These resources from the National Blood Clot Alliance aim to stop blood clots by watching for signs and symptoms.
"What we worry about is clots actually getting larger and traveling up into the lungs," Vandyke said. "And when it travels to the lungs, it can actually cause symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, specifically chest pain with activity."
Vandyke explains there's about 900,000 Americans annually affected by blood clots, and 100,000 of them lose their lives each year. In fact, every six minutes, someone dies from a blood clot. Clots impact African Americans more than Caucasians by 60%, and with age, men become more susceptible.
"The most common clots, or blood clots, that we see are clots in your leg that are called Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)," Dr. Cummings said. “Those clots can embolize or break loose and go to our lungs and cause what's called a Pulmonary Embolus, and that's what causes a majority of the fatalities that we see with this disease.”
Fortunately, there's more than just medicine to stop the clot. There's machines. “The most common one that we do for Pulmonary Embolism and DVT now are what's called Mechanical Thrombectomy," Dr. Cummings said. "And it's a procedure where they advance a catheter up into the clot and actually suck the clot out using mechanical suction, and then remove the clot further by these metal coils that go up and try to basically clean out your blood vessel.” This procedure, according to Dr. Cummings, is most common for higher risk patients.
“We can also offer Lytic Therapy, where we give medications to try to break up the clot," Dr. Cummings said. “We even have the opportunity, if really needed, to do an open Embolectomy, where patients get open heart surgery, or we use what's called ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation), which is a mechanical device that oxygenates your blood.”
Dr. Cummings emphasizes that every patient is different, so for some, medicine will do the trick. For others, like Ferris State professor Sandy Alspach, surgery was a must.
"This year, in January, I was walking across campus from my car to my office, and I had to stop and sit to catch my breath," Alspach said. Alspach has had two blood clot scares. The first was two years ago, and the second was two months ago.
Now, just two weeks after her surgery, thanks to Corewell Health, "I'm able to walk the distances I need to walk without the shortness of breath," Alspach said.
Alspach stands as a reminder that blood clots are underestimated, and it's important to stay educated.
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