Originally Posted by
grwoolf
I just think your advice to stay seated at all times is mis-guided and it's better to get up and stretch your legs when you have a chance (just like the airlines recommend).
The idea that endurance athletes might be at higher risk is certainly interesting. I'll definitely make more of a point to stay hydrated and stretch my legs in the future.
+1
I didn't take the whole getting up and moving around thing seriously ... after all, I'm not overweight, sedentary, and old. And yet, 16 hours into a 17 hour flight I developed DVT. And believe me you DO NOT want to develop DVT. Not only did it come close to killing me, but I've been fighting with it for 7 months now, and am only just now starting to get my cycling strength back. I'm excited now when I can do a 50 km ride ... where pre-DVT I was knocking off 150+ km rides with no problems at all.
And apparently I'm one of the lucky ones because DVT did not kill me, and I don't appear to have ongoing vein damage.
Now obviously, if there's a lot of turbulance and the seatbelt sign was on, you would want to remain seated. But most flights aren't turbulant all the time ... and if there was an extended period of turbulance, then you'd do the foot exercises I described above where you point your toes and bring your toes up to stretch your calves and get the blood flowing.