Lea en español Since the dawn of the jet age, travelers have been warned about the risks of dangerous blood clots while flying. In recent years, those warnings have often been accompanied by advice to wear compression socks. But the case for keeping them on your packing list isn't as clear-cut as you might expect.
"It's perfectly fine to use them," said Dr. Joshua Beckman, director of vascular medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, but science can't say exactly how much they might help travelers. Compression socks – sometimes referred to as graduated compression socks or stockings – squeeze at the ankles, with pressure gradually decreasing further up the leg.
The squeezing helps keep blood flowing by forcing blood in the legs to return to the heart. An estimated 666,000 people in the U.S.
were hospitalized with deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, in 2020, according to the most recent statistics from the American Heart Association. DVT occurs when a clot forms in a large vein, usually in a leg. An additional 432,000 were hospitalized for pulmonary embolism, where a clot travels to the lungs.
In 2021, those problems – collectively known as venous thromboembolism, or VTE – were mentioned as a cause of nearly 81,000 deaths. DVT symptoms include leg pain, swelling or skin that feels warm to the touch. Pulmonary embolism symptoms include shortness of breath, coughing and chest pain.
A long-haul flight makes VTE from 1.5 to four times more likely, according to a r.
