Apanemia Health Centre

Archive for the ‘Antiphospholipid Syndrome’ Category

If properly treated, the prognosis is good. Oral anticoagulant therapy reduces the risk of further blood clots in both arteries and veins, but treatment should be conducted for extended periods of time and even throughout life, as there is great risk of new clots to stop treatment. Moreover, as already mentioned, it is necessary to regular blood tests to ensure that the degree of anticoagulation is correct.

Patients should also reduce the risk of thrombosis for reasons other than the antiphospholipid syndrome. Should stop smoking, maintain normal body weight and exercising regularly. The physician should also assess other risk factors of thrombosis, blood pressure readings to rule out high blood pressure, checking blood glucose levels to exclude diabetes and cholesterol levels measured. Read the rest of this entry »

The fundamental goal of treatment is to reduce the tendency for blood to clot. This is usually achieved with pills called oral anticoagulant warfarin (Sintrom). They are taken daily, requiring regular blood tests to ensure that the degree of anticoagulation is adequate. This is done through a blood test called the INR, which compares the tendency to clot the blood of the patient with a standard. Patients with antiphospholipid syndrome who have repeatedly thrombosis should be treated with oral anticoagulants.

Patients with antiphospholipid syndrome who have had repeated abortions should be treated, but not with oral anticoagulants, since these can cause birth defects if given during pregnancy. The treatment of these patients may be aspirin, heparin, or sometimes both. Heparin is an anticoagulant but also can not be given orally during pregnancy is necessary to give daily by injection under the skin. Generally it is possible that the injection is performed by the patient. There Injection pens designed for this issue that allow easy and convenient administration. Unlike warfarin are not usually require blood tests to monitor your margin effect and overdose prevention. Read the rest of this entry »

What can your doctor do?

Your doctor may ask you questions about the events described above, especially clotting problems and abortions. You can search for skin lesions of livedo reticularis. If your doctor suspects this diagnosis the patient asked the blood test to look for antiphospholipid antibodies or send you to a specialist. Read the rest of this entry »

What types of antiphospholipid syndrome exist?

Primary antiphospholipid syndrome

When symptoms caused by antiphospholipid syndrome are not associated with another disease called primary antiphospholipid syndrome.

Secondary antiphospholipid syndrome

The secondary form occurs as a consequence of another autoimmune disease like lupus erythematosus, a disease that can cause a damage to various body organs.

The two types are more frequent in women. Read the rest of this entry »

The symptoms are related to the impairment of coagulation.

- Most of the clots occur in leg veins (deep vein thrombosis), resulting in pain and swelling in the calf level. This can occur once or repeatedly occur repeatedly.

- Blood clots can also occur in the lung (pulmonary embolism), or they may break off and reach the same displacement of one that originally appeared in the leg, but that breaks loose and travels in the circulation until it lodges in the blood vessels the lung. A clot in the lungs can cause breathing difficulties, chest pain that worsens with breathing, or coughing up a small amount of blood. Some clots occur in women soon after you start taking oral contraceptives (those containing estrogen). Read the rest of this entry »

What is antiphospholipid syndrome (Hughes syndrome)?

Antiphospholipid syndrome is sometimes called “sticky blood syndrome” and patients have a tendency to form clots in blood vessels (thrombosis). Any blood vessel can be affected, whether the veins (thin-walled vessels that carry blood to the heart) or arteries (thick muscular walled vessels that carry blood from the heart to the organs).

As a result of this increase in clotting, patients may develop repeated clots, for example in the veins of the legs (deep vein thrombosis) or in the arteries that carry blood to the brain, causing stroke (cerebral thrombosis ). In pregnancy, the placenta may have small clots and there is an increased risk of abortion, especially in the middle months of pregnancy. Read the rest of this entry »