Shaking a leg at work is a good idea

Navjot Singh Sidhu is admitted to Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in Delhi with acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which causes death when blood clots formed in the legs move to the heart and lungs in the bloodstream to trigger lung collapse.

The condition, called pulmonary embolism, is potentially fatal and is a medical emergency. Sidhu’s condition stabilised without surgery or clot-busting interventions because he got diagnosed and treated quickly. Many people, however, do not get help in time.

“DVT usually affects people over 60 years, but young people who are obese, smokers, have a history of heart disease or are immobile for long stretches of time for whatever reason are also at risk,” says Dr Ravi R Kasliwal, chairman, clinical and preventive cardiology, Medanta - The Medicity. Also at risk are those who have recently had surgery, and pregnant women.

While most people know that immobility associated with longhaul flights, long road trips (six hours or more) or injury — much like the knee injury in Sidhu’s case — raise the risk of people developing life-threatening blood clots, so does sitting for long stretches at your workstation.

“We usually get patients who develop clots during long flights, have jobs where they spend long hours standing or have defects in the blood vessels of the legs (chronic venous insufficiency),” says Dr Purshotam Lal, chairman of interventional cardiology at the Metro Group of Hospitals.

Milind Saxena, 38, felt no warning signs except for a faint burning sensation in his leg when he left his desk after clocking in 16-hours. “I had two big deadlines the following day, so I was glued to my laptop for several hours. I even took my coffee breaks at my desk,” says Saxena, who works for a multinational consultancy in Gurgaon.

He blamed the burn in his left leg on muscle stiffness and headed home, only to collapse in the office parking lot because of acute chest pain. Luckily, the guards saw him fall and rushed him to Medanta.

“The clots were surgically removed and I was put on blood thinners. It happened a little over a year ago, and since then I’ve been using a fitness app to remind me to get up and take hourly breaks,” he says.

People who sit at a desk for eight or more hours in a day and spend more than three hours at a stretch without getting up double their risk of developing DVT, reported British researchers in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Both the cumulative hours seated at work, as well as the number of hours seated without getting up increase risk, with each additional hour spent sitting without getting up increasing the chances of developing blood clots by 20%.

“DVT is caused by a combination of factors, such as increased pressure in the veins of the legs caused by sitting in a cramped position, reduced muscle activity and/ or dehydration,” says Dr Kasliwal. If you can’t step away every hour, doing leg and foot exercises similar to those recommended during longhaul flights helps.

“Taking short breaks to walk around and changing your posture can have a dramatic effect in reducing not just DVT risk but also aches and pains in the neck, shoulders, back and wrists associated with computer use.” says Dr Lal.