Swelling and Airline Travel

I just got back from a trip to California where I was doing way more physical activity than I usually do. The plane ride back was not a direct flight, so had a short layover and a connecting flight. I was also excessively tired, running on about 3 hours of sleep. As a consequence, I slept on the flights. This was not a bad thing, except that I did not move much for the 4 hours while I was flying. This means no exercising or moving of my legs. The result when I landed in Denver was excessive swelling of my feet, ankles, and lower legs.

This is a perfect set up for a blood clot to form. How I could have prevented this was every 20 minutes or so pulling my toes upward toward my shin and then pointing my toes about 10 times in each direction. When you are awake on the plane you may not be doing these exercises, but you may be moving your legs. You will find that when you do these simple exercises you can prevent the excessive swelling in the lower extremities and help prevent a blood clot from forming.

When I got home, I immediately elevated my feet above the level of my heart to help get the swelling down.