DTV

[bookworm1982]

Hello, my sister's husband has just been taken in with suspected DTV. My sister is freaking out. If it is DTV, can anyone reassure me if they've had it or know someone that had it, and that they were ok after treatment? Thanks a lot xxx

DVT?
Friend had it - had warfarin and many blood (weekly) tests for a while but is now perfectly fine.
Colleagues husband also had DVT and is, again, fine.
I hope your BIL will be ok, try not to worry. The fact that it was suspected and he is in hospital and will be getting treatment is good.

Deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) is a fairly common condition, @bookworm1982. If he's in hospital it should be sorted fairly quickly. The most important thing is to prevent further clots, particularly in the lungs, so - as @NotAnotherBloodyNameChange suggested - he will be given anticoagulants straight away. Most probably apixaban or rivaroxaban, as warfarin is much less common for new patients now. Might be different if he has any history of kidney problems.

Should have said... One of the reasons why warfarin is less common now is that the newer drugs don't require all the additional blood tests.

Thanks guys. That's so helpful. Yes, not DVT NOT DTV!!

Ok so he’s got to go back tomorrow for an ultrasound and they’ve given him a blood thinning injection. They took bloods and apparently you should be in range of 0-500 & his came back as plus 3900. Is that really bad?

@bookworm1982 - That will be a D-dimer test, which detects breakdown products from blood clots and shows that there has been a clot in the circulatory system. Normal range is 220-460 ng/mL (0.22-0.46 microgram/mL or fibrinogen equivalent units, FEU). It's used more to exclude venous thromboembolism (VTE) as a cause (if it's less than 500 ng/mL and there is a low clinical probability score). Don't worry about how much above the range it is: it's just showing that VTE can't be excluded and therefore he needs anticoagulants while awaiting further investigations..

The ultrasound will presumably be a Doppler ultrasound scan to find which blood vessel(s) is/are blocked. My mum had one a couple of weeks ago, but for a different reason.

The injection will probably have been a low molecular weight heparin, but I don't know your brother-in-law's age or the state of his kidneys so I can't say that for certain.

The bottom line is that he is being managed and someone is keeping an eye on him.

Thank you. That really is so helpful!! He's having ultrasound tomorrow. My poor sister is in for a sleepless night thank you agajn cxx