Phlebitis

[Patsy33]

My son had a red swelling on his lower forearm last weekend and his arm and hand was hurting. He went to casualty and doctor said it likely trauma phlebitis, and gave him a course of antibiotics and told if it spread up his arm to see his doctor straight away.My son works in a warehouse and works very hard, so maybe that's the cause. Luckily, redness and swelling improved. Is or can it be dangerous?

[Sqad]

I have read your post several times and I think, that the question that you are really asking is, can a clot form in the damaged area (forearm) and travel to the lungs ( Pulmonary Embolism)
The answer is very rarely a deep vein in the arm may become blocked by a blood clot, which may then break away to lodge in the lungs. This is an extremely uncommon occurrence.

\\\.My son works in a warehouse and works very hard, so maybe that's the cause. \\\

Yes, I agree that his work environment may have causes his problem and i agree with the diagnosis of the Casualty Dr, although I would question the prescription of antibiotics, but as he has improved then the method justified the means.

The danger injury would be to a deep vein and there is no suggestion of this in the above account, merely superficial vein problem.

As the redness and swelling has improved, then i would suggest that he is on his way to an uneventful recovery.

[Patsy33]

Thank you for your reply Squad. Although inflammation has improved, his hand and lower arm still painful when he performs tasks.

[Patsy33]

Sqad! :)

[masma]

Sqad - can you explain to me the difference between phlebitis and dvt please. I didn't know you could get phlebitis in the arm, can you also get a dvt?

[Mamyalynne]

I think Sqad covered some of that in his first response..


//The answer is very rarely a deep vein in the arm may become blocked by a blood clot, which may then break away to lodge in the lungs. This is an extremely uncommon occurrence. //

[Sqad]

masma.......it is all to do with veins.......veins anywhere....legs, arms brain....wherever there are veins one can get phlebitis....(inflammation of veins).

Now veins can be large (deep) or small (superficial) and both can be come inflamed.....BUT...!!! when the deep vein becomes inflamed a clot may form..DEEP VEIN THROMBOSIS. Now when this occurs, it can either "sit tight " in the vein or move off to the lungs (PULMONARY EMBOLUS) and that is what is dangerous.

[Peter Pedant]

has been described in History

1590 Battle of Ivry Henry of Navarre [ 'plume of navarre ' ]waggled his sword so long and effectively he couldn't move it for six weeks.
Lumley thought this was probably an axillary vein thrombosis

French wiki thinks not: Le lendemain, doté d'une santé de fer, le roi ira à la chasse.

Henri's thrombosis was much higher than your son's

[Sqad]

PP


\\\Henri's thrombosis was much higher than your son's\\

To be clear.....Patsy's son didn't have a thrombosis, it was a phlebitis.

[Eve]

I had phlebitis in my arm, due to a cannula (sp?) which wasn't put in properly and they kept fobbing me off (about 14 long hours!) despite me pointing out how much it hurt when they injected antibiotics etc... into it. It really did hurt.

It wasn't until I ended up looking like Popeye as it had all swollen up, and I threatened nicely to take it out myself if they didn't that they finally took it out and gave me some cooling bandages as the area around it felt like it was burning.

Hope your son is better soon.

[Patsy33]

Good job you kept on to them with a subtle threat! My son's arm is a lot better thanks Eve, although still a bit painful during his line of work ( warehouse)