What to know about blood clots as Philadelphia Eagles' Jalen Hurts sidelined

And our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Tara Narula, joined us now with more on blood clots. And, Doc, good morning to you. And what makes this type of blood clot different, and how dangerous is it? So we're talking about a clot in the superficial veins of the legs. These are the veins that sit a couple centimeters under the skin. The problem is that sometimes they can extend or propagate into the deep veins, or they can be associated with a deep vein clot. And in that case, it can break off, go to the lungs, and as you heard in Will's piece, become what we call pulmonary embolism, which can be life-threatening. We pick these up generally if someone has a red swollen tender warm leg on an ultrasound We can see this in cases where there's some sort of lack of normal flow in the veins and that can happen with a kick or injury to the veins it can happen with varicose veins a procedure on the veins or in Cases where someone's immobile like a long plane flight or after surgery or if they're hyper coagulable They're prone to clotting either genetically or from cancer. Sometimes the Superficial veins are 25% of the time you will see a deep vein with a superficial a deep vein clot with a superficial thing clot. And the risk is highest in the first three months of that clot. So how do you treat it? Extending. So really, it's three things. It's serial ultrasounds. You're going to follow it. You're going to treat the pain and inflammation with usually non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. You're going to use warm compresses, elevate the legs, compression stockings, and then in some cases, blood thinners. And those blood thinners can be required up to 45 days and potentially longer depending on how extensive it is. So can you play through that? So generally full contact sports are not advised if someone is on a blood thinner. So, you know, we'll have to see. We don't know the extent of his clot. And in Jalen Hurts' case, he was in London when he discovered this. So he had to travel home. What does it mean to travel if you have a blood clot? Do they, does travel lend itself to blood clots? Absolutely. We know that blood clots can happen from long airplane flights. Again, the legs are immobile. So that's why we tell people to walk around, do calf exercises, stay hydrated. Each case is going to be particular in terms of what a doctor recommends if you have a clot in terms of flying. But talk to your doctor. definitely talk to your doctor. Thank you Dr. Narula.