10% – 30% of people will die within one month of diagnosis. One-third (about 33%) of people with DVT/PE will have a recurrence within 10 years.
About 25% of people who have a PE will die suddenly, and that will be the only symptom. About 23% of people with PE will die within 3 months of diagnosis, just over 30% will die after 6 months, and there is a 37% mortality (death) rate at 1 year after being diagnosed.
Blood clots in the legs can be very dangerous because they can break free and travel to other parts of the body, including the brain and heart. When a blood clot enters the lung, it can trigger a potentially fatal event called a pulmonary embolism (PE).
However, reported survival after venous thromboembolism varies widely, with "short-term" survival ranging from 95% to 97% for deep vein thrombosis8,9 and from 77% to 94% for pulmonary embolism,4,6,8,9 while "long-term" survival ranges from 61% to 75% for both deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.
Life goes on after you've been diagnosed with a blood clot. While it may take time to recover, there's no reason why you can't continue to live the life you love.
It is important to start treatment right away for DVT. It takes about 3 to 6 months for a blood clot to go away.
The length of time you will stay in the hospital for treatment of a blood clot varies. The average hospital stay length is between five and seven days. However, some people may only stay for two or three days while others stay for two to three weeks.
Will you be admitted to the hospital or sent home? If a DVT is confirmed, you may be discharged and sent home with injectable or oral anticoagulant medication (sometimes called a blood thinner). That said, every patient is different, and you may be admitted to the hospital if the ER doctor believes it's necessary.
Treatment can include: Anticoagulants: The most common treatment for a blood clot is anticoagulants or blood thinners. They work by reducing the body's ability to form new clots and preventing existing clots from growing larger. Anticoagulants can be given in the form of pills or intravenous injections.
On average, one American dies of a blood clot every 6 minutes. A blood clot in one of the large veins, usually in a person's leg or arm, is called a deep vein thrombosis or DVT.
The doctor will make a cut in the area above your blood clot. He or she will open the blood vessel and take out the clot. In some cases, a balloon attached to a thin tube (catheter) will be used in the blood vessel to remove any part of the clot that remains. A stent may be put in the blood vessel to help keep it open.
The mortality rate after venous thrombosis is about 20% within 1 y [2],[8]. Mortality is 2- to 4-fold higher for patients with pulmonary embolism (PE), of whom 10%–20% die within 3 mo after the event, than for patients with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of the leg [2],[9]–[11].
Important! If you think you have a blood clot, call your doctor or go to the emergency room right away! Blood clots can be dangerous. Blood clots that form in the veins in your legs, arms, and groin can break loose and move to other parts of your body, including your lungs.
The primary treatment for DVT and PE is anticoagulation with blood thinners. These medications increase the time it takes for blood to clot. They prevent new clots from forming and existing clots from growing larger. Anticoagulants do not dissolve a clot.
Heart or lungs: A blood clot in the heart will cause symptoms of a heart attack such as crushing chest pain, sweating, pain that travels down the left arm, and/or shortness of breath. A blood clot in the lungs can cause chest pain, difficulty breathing, and sometimes can lead to coughing up blood.
Chest pain or discomfort that gets worse when you breathe deeply or cough. Coughing up blood. Feeling lightheaded or faint. Feeling anxious or sweating.
Sometimes a catheter-based procedure to break up or remove the clot is necessary. Other times, clot-busting drugs (thrombolytics) can be used. For venous clots, your Dignity Health doctor may prescribe blood thinners (anticoagulants) to help blood flow past the clot and prevent the clot from growing.
Blood clots can be very serious, so symptoms of blood clots should be evaluated by a doctor immediately. If not treated, a clot can break free and cause a pulmonary embolism—where the clot gets stuck in a blood vessel in the lung, causing severe shortness of breath and even sudden death.
You might need surgical thrombectomy if you have a blood clot in an artery or vein. This surgery is often needed for a blood clot in an arm or leg. In some cases, it may also be needed for a blood clot in an organ or other part of the body.
Does blood clot pain come and go? Unlike the pain from a charley horse that usually goes away after stretching or with rest, the pain from a blood clot does not go away and usually gets worse with time.
It's also worth mentioning that the most common symptom after a blood clot is exhaustion and fatigue. So, be kind to yourself and rest when you need to. For the first couple of months, you might not feel like yourself; you might feel like resting is all you can do, and that's okay because that's part of this disease.
For venous clots, you will take blood thinners (a)nticoagulants to prevent the clot from growing and help blood flow past the clot. You may also need a procedure to place a filter in your vena cava, the large vein that carries blood to your heart. The filter will stop the clot from entering your heart or lungs.
Treatment of DVT
You may have an injection of an anticoagulant (blood thinning) medicine called heparin while you're waiting for an ultrasound scan to tell if you have a DVT. After DVT is diagnosed, the main treatment is tablets of an anticoagulant medicine, such as warfarin and rivaroxaban.
The mean life expectancy after diagnosis of NVAF was 43.3 months. In a Kaplan‐Meier analysis, patients who were treated with warfarin had a mean life expectancy of 52.0 months, whereas those who were not treated with warfarin had a corresponding life expectancy of 38.2 months (Δ = 13.8 months, p < 0.001) (fig 1).