Real Madrid’s former soccer player Fernando Morientes has lived a stressful episode for his health. As revealed in the COPE, where he collaborates as an analyst, he was admitted urgently and was hospitalized five days after suffering a pulmonary thromboembolism. A serious condition that has to do with the tourist class syndrome and plane trips.
As Morientes described, “it was a clot that had been formed by prolonged immobility on trips. A clot that is born on the back of the knee for so long in the air, stopped. My blood thickened on the plane, And little by little that thrombus went out into his veins, lodged in the lung and that was the pain he had.
Morientes recovers, although the prognosis of this ailment could have fatal consequences during the crisis, according to ABC, doctors José Calabuig, responsible for the cardiology service of the University of Navarra, and José Burzaco, medical director of the Pío XII Hospital in Madrid.
“For years it has been described as tourist class syndrome,” explains José Calabuig, Miguel Induráin’s head. Being a long time sitting on the plane implies that the veins are compressed, that the English do not flex and that the venous return is complicated. If there is any expansion of the veins, sequelae of some operation or varicose veins, the blood stagnates and a thrombus may arise. The blood rises from the twin to the heart. And if the thrombus is powerful, cover an artery ».
Long -term flights are a risk exercise for people with thrombus propensity. “The longer the duration of the flight is, the more risk there is a pulmonary embolism,” analyzes the doctor Jon Burzaco, of the Pius XII hospital in Madrid.
«If you spend a lot of time, the blood does not move. The fact of being standing can cause thrombos, ”says Jon Burzaco. There is a compression of the blood vessels that complicates the return of blood from the legs to the heart ».
Tight clothes
José Calabuig says that the trance that Morientes lived «can happen to anyone. Obviously, people who wear very tight clothes or those who have mobility difficulties and cannot stretch »are more risky.
“There are some tables with the risk index in the tourist class syndrome in the airplanes,” explains Dr. Burzaco. Every two hours of flightincreases the risk of suffering a thrombus by 25 %, if you do not move or do not stretch the tips of the feet ».
The remedies seem simple to avoid this hospitalization suffered by the former Real Madrid player. «It is advised stretch the tip of the feet, Stretch the body in the seat, walk every two hours and, above all, not wear tight clothes, ”says José Calabuig.
«A short flight does not compress the veins as much as a long one – says Dr. Burzaco – on flights of more than four hours there can be an occlusion of the veins and a thrombosis. In the Business class it does not usually happen because passengers can stretch, lie or move the body ».
«Pulmonary embolisms They are very afraid to the cardiologists because they are mostly mortal, ”says Dr. Calabuig. The patient has a sense of strong discomfort in the chest and lack of air that can lead to a cardiac arrest. Formerly, I tell you about thirty years ago, pulmonary embolisms were the first cause of hospital death ».
