Blood Clots, Orthopaedics and Joint Replacements
These days, even amongst lay people, there is a pretty well known relationship between big operations and blood clots, With joint replacements, clots are common enough that we routinely give people blood thinners to prevent them.
Why are clots bad? Well, they hurt; they can cause swelling in the affected limb, which can cascade on to a whole other bunch of problems. They can grow, and bits can break off and go to your heart, lungs or brain which can have serious effect on your health. On the other hand the risk with blood thinners, is they make you bleed; a bleeding surgical wound has a higher chance of infection, takes longer to heal, and will often leave you with a stiff joint.
There is ongoing tenions between physicians, who want to give powerful blood thinners, and surgeons, who want your joint to work afterwards!
Dr Shooter will usually use aspirin in low risk patients. New research confirms the results are as good as anything else out there! Click here to learn more on the new research into aspirin use in joint arthroplasty.