At the moment we are on holiday in Los Angeles. We visited Universal studios and Warner Brother studios during our stay. We learnt some interesting things abut how blood is portrayed in the movies. Most action movies and thrillers these days have scenes where copious amounts of blood flows freely. I am a fan of Game of Thrones and they certainly don't hold back with the blood … [Read more...]
Risk Factors – Thrombophilia: Protein C deficiency
Protein C Protein C was discovered in the 1970s by Stenflo, a scientists working on plasma from cows. He was interested in the proteins that required vitamin K to function properly. He was doing an experiment separating vitamin K dependent proteins in bovine plasma using ion-exchange chromatography. During these experiments he found a protein not previously identified that … [Read more...]
Weekend Reflection – “remember to turn on the light.”
This is part of our series of quotes that may help when you’re facing adversity or finding your new normal. You may have discovered your DVT is linked to a diagnosis of cancer, you may have suffered a life-threatening PE or heart attack. Whatever the reason, many of our readers go through difficult times. We post these on the weekends, so if you’re not interested you can … [Read more...]
Risk Factor – Thrombophilia: Antithrombin deficiency
Family History Since the first report, hundreds of families have been identified with antithrombin deficiency, but it is still quite a rare condition and only affects about 1 in 5000 people. It is found in about 2 to 3% of people who have a blood clot before the age of 40yrs. Research A great deal is now know about antithrombin. The DNA sequence is known and the molecular … [Read more...]
Weekend Reflection – “Live the healthiest life that you can enjoy”
A few days into the new year and your more outrageous resolutions may be broken by now. That's when the following more moderate resolution, taken from Dr Yoni Freedhoff's website Weighty Matters come into play, "Live the healthiest life that you can enjoy" Dr Freedhoff is a Canadian weight management physician who has written a wonderfully realistic book about weight … [Read more...]
Risk Factors – Thrombophilia: Part 1
Over the last few months we have been running a series of posts on the risk factors for thrombosis. A few weeks ago I looked at the link between family history and thrombosis and touched on inherited causes of blood clots. This is a big field and quite complex as more and more risk factors have been identified. In this post I will give you some background to the … [Read more...]
Three thrombo resolutions
New Year is the time for making resolutions. If you are like me, they last for a few weeks at most but the intention is good. For people who have had a blood clot these are three things that you might want to add to your resolutions for this year. Take your tablets regularly If you are taking an anticoagulant it is very important that you keep taking it regularly. This is … [Read more...]
5 best posts of 2016
As we look back over the past year we thought we'd remind you of our 5 most popular medical posts for 2016 in case you missed any of them. The F words of recovery - could you have PTSD? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, can occur in anyone who has experienced a terrifying or traumatic event including serious injury or threat of death. The cluster of symptoms are … [Read more...]
Christmas clot look-a-likes
New Zealand enters into a special time of year from now till February, when it is basically SHUT! In the Northern hemisphere, journalists have what they call the 'silly season' where there is little news through the summer: But in New Zealand we have summer and Christmas rolled into one, so for January almost everything is very quiet and people go on holiday. We will be … [Read more...]
Christmas food and warfarin
This time of year there is a tendency for us all to eat a little more than usual. For most people their main concern is putting on a bit more weight, but if you take warfarin you have the added concern of how will it affect my INR. When I lived in the UK and supervised an anticoagulant clinic, Christmas was always a difficult time. For some people their INR control went all … [Read more...]