Jalen Hurts diagnosed with multiple blood clots in lungs, will reportedly miss rest of season

Welcome back to The Loop. So we just told you about this story making headlines this morning that NFL quarterback Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles will be out the whole season it sounds like with blood clots. They were just found in his lungs. So we're here to talk about this situation is Dr. Kumar Madhseri, an interventional radiologist. Doctor, thanks for being here and joining us. Thanks. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So this news just came out about Jalen Hurts. I mean, we're talking about an obviously athletic guy. He's presumably really healthy. He's 28 years old. I mean, that's so young. So I mean, obviously we don't know his actual prognosis specifically. It's not like you've examined the guy. But how does something like this happen in someone that's really like a healthy athletic person? Yeah, no, it's a great question. It's a a little situation where a lot of people don't understand the reality of blood clots, which we call in the legs, we call it DVT for deep vein thrombosis. And if that blood clot travels to the lung, it's called a PE, pulmonary embolus. The reality is a lot of these diseases don't discriminate how young you are or healthy are in some of these situations. Obviously, Jalen's a very high level athlete with a lot of exercise regimens and situations like that. But blood Blood clots develop often, whether it's provoked by certain situations or unprovoked. Now, what happens when somebody gets a blood clot, if it's in the legs, they often find out that they feel sudden pain, swelling, redness. Those kind of situations of the leg is usually the first sign and symptom of a blood clot in the leg. Usually this is diagnosed when you go to the hospital with an ultrasound and you find out where exactly this blood clot is. once it's found it has to be treated often with medications uh long term sometimes us vascular specialists will go in and we may have to remove it or find out some other mechanical issues that are related to it so even though Jalen's an NFL athlete we've seen this over time with other athletes as well because blood clots can happen for many different reasons whether you've been traveling for a long distance without much movement athletes do that unfortunately quite a bit yeah sometimes it can be induced by dehydration from a family history of it from a mechanical problem in your body that's causing a backup of blood flow and there's also some genetic issues that cause a higher chance of blood clotting along with cancers and other underlying situations there's kind of a whole host of why it can happen but it can be either provoked by something in your body or unprovoked by some of these transient meaning temporary things that happen in your life, events that cause your blood to kind of just pool up for a while. Okay, so when you say that, I actually wanted to break this down completely because we always say blood clot, blood clot. I think I'm realizing that I don't even know what a blood clot is. What is it made of? Is it just, what is it? So blood clot, if you imagine all your blood cells in your body, the red blood cells and also these other cells in the body called platelets. Imagine that you cut your finger and you get a clot, right? You get this dark, dry scab. Those are all products from your blood that have sealed off that cut. Now, imagine you had that scab, but it's sitting in the middle of your blood vessel. So blood sat there for a while, and whatever caused underlying injury, inflammation, those blood cells all started clumping together and formed basically a roadblock. So now basically anything in the vein below that roadblock can't travel north like it's supposed to. it starts causing swelling and pain, and it actually causes more clotting to happen. Oh, wow. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, that's a really great explanation for that. Thank you. And then we're talking about the leg, and then it kind of moves up to the lung. Okay. Is that something that happens a lot? Or I mean, what are the symptoms of that happening in your lungs? How is that different from a leg? Sure. So in the leg, the symptoms are when the blood gets blocked by the clot you get swelling pain and kind of propagation of more clot there when it breaks off like suddenly you traveled for eight hours you suddenly started moving and that clot that was there just flew your blood vessels especially your veins are a network of highways that go all the way from your toes and your head all the way to your heart and when that clot flies somewhere it tends to fly into the lungs and the vessels in the lungs that are supposed to freshen up your blood when you breathe now it jams those vessels so you're not breathing well in one part of your lung that's called the PE which they also diagnose with and it's it's unfortunately a very common situation um if it suddenly blocks all your blood flow to your lungs that can cause sudden death um otherwise it can cause blockage of some of your vessels in the lungs called the pulmonary arteries those may require uh medication sometimes we have to go in and do procedures, rarely nowadays, sometimes it's open surgery of the heart. That's not as common nowadays. But depending on how bad the blockage is and how your body is underlying from a normal standpoint can dictate what has to happen. But pulmonary embolism is common. DVT is very common. Okay. Okay, I understand. By the way, I'm glad that you're the doctor because hearing this, I'm like, oh, I'm kind of queasy. This is kind of crazy stuff. But I mean, on a serious note, I am sure that Jalen is getting top of the line medical care. We really hope he gets better. But what does this mean for something like an NFL career where you are dependent on your body to function? Yeah, you know, NFL and any high level athlete, they take a bigger toll on their bodies. But when you get diagnosed with DVT or PE, those are thrown into a bucket called VTE, venous thromboembolism. When you have VTE of blood clots, the treatment plan, it sounds like it's going to be pills that'll provide anticoagulation, meaning you take medications to help your body slowly break down those blood clots as best as it can. Now, that's usually several months at the minimum as they find out why he may have developed the blood clot in the first place. If they figure out there's no underlying problem that caused this, it could be a few months of this medication therapy. Now, the problem is this is a blood thinner typically. So what happens is if you're in a high contact sport or any kind of a contact sport or any kind of activities like that, you're at risk for developing bleeding at a higher rate than anybody else. Just like elderly population get put on blood thinners, they can have a fall and suddenly they have a brain bleed or a bleed in their belly or something like that. So unfortunately, when you're on the blood thinners, playing any kind of contact activity is pretty much not allowed. that sounds kind of out of the question for sure. So for the rest of us, like normal human beings, we are not elite athletes. I mean, I'm thinking about, I feel like I'm in decent shape. I'm in my 40s. I mean, what are the rest of us need to know? What symptoms do we need to look out for? What do we need to avoid? What would you prescribe for the rest of us? I think everybody as we get older, once you get into the adult age and beyond, we should all be considering wearing compression stockings, which you can buy over the counter. What they do is, if you imagine how you see people in the plane standing up and exercising, people trying to get up every few hours, that's because you're trying to circulate blood flow in your veins. Your veins don't pump themselves. It requires your muscles to move. So compression stockings, you wear those, you know, colored long socks. They have some tightness to it. They're not the most comfortable, but they are great at preventing swelling and blood clot prevention, propagation. So that's one thing. But if you notice that your legs are swelling up, you have big varicose veins, those big spider veins that many people have, those are signs of underlying problems in your veins. And when you have underlying problems in your veins, you could be at higher risk for developing blood clots at any point. So if you notice leg swelling, pain, big varicose veins, those are all things that you should be seeing your doctor and sometimes the vascular specialist to figure out what's the best way to get a long-term solution or management for this. Obesity is a big problem for blood clots. some obviously family history, laying or sitting around or being sedentary for a long time. A lot of people working from home, I think it's important to make sure that everybody tries to get activity every day and not be in one position for a long time. That's just unfortunately a risk factor for blood clots. So those are kind of the basic things in life that we talk about for a lot of health conditions, like walking a lot. Those are all the things you do to prevent it and also prevent it from getting worse. Yeah, no, these are great tips. And I'm Glad you said compression socks. I love a compression sock, so by all means, I'll wear them all the time if I could. But no, doctor, this is great advice. Thank you so much for being with us and also breaking down what sounds like a really scary condition. Very, very helpful to have you here. Of course. Glad to be here.