Hello all,

I hope someone can help me with a question. I live in Scotland and need some help please. I have a friend who has Gastric Bypass surgery and ended up with a DVT in Leg leg located near the fermoral artery. She was on Heparin and is now on waffarin( blood thinner) . She is at home now but has had a follow up Ultra sound which show that it has not got smaller and is still located near the femeral artery.

Her leg is very oedamatous ( looks like a watermelon) and her ankle is also swollen. I would like to know how long it will take for the DVT to dissolve. And what is her prognosis and what is her long term outcome likely to be. Is she going to be at risk of it returning and how long will it be before she can return to work. She works mainly in an office and sits for a long time during the day.

Thank you so very much for any help

Luciana

I have no medical knowledge or training. A friend of mine had a dvt which was being medicated but before he could get rid of it, it moved to another location in his body and he had a stroke. He survived but with many problems.
I have also read about a type of screen being placed in the blood vessel so as to prevent the dvt from moving as it did in my friend's case.
I am sorry I don't have any further information or recommendations. Best wishes.

Well blood thinner is a good start. A thrombus is a blood clot that has gotten lodged in a blood vessel. If the blood clot gets smaller then it will moved and possibly cause a heart attack or stroke if it gets lodged in a smaller vessel. Its like having a milkshake and sucking it through a straw. When a larger piece of harder ice cream gets lodged in the straw you can no longer get anything out of the straw but when it melts a little it continue through the small opening of the straw. Dissolving a thrombus takes different times for different people. If it stays too long then the likelihood of her leg being amputated becomes much greater. There are screens that a surgeon can place to keep the clot in the lower extremities. She needs to talk to her dr about the screen