Natural Ways to Prevent Blood Clots

I’m researching ways natural ways to prevent blood clots.  I’m wanting to become my own authority on preventing and treating blood clots BECAUSE it seems like every time we log onto fb – someone is in the hospital with one or more blood clots.

I KNOW preventing blood clots can be done because my own cardiologist told me so.  So WHY is it so hard to find information on them?  HOW are we going to understand them – prevent them or treat them if we have them – if we can’t find any information on them?

I’ve finally researched enough in reliable places and found this information – or enough to satisfy my own curiosity – and let me tell ya – it was like panning for gold.  Just almost impossible to find just what I wanted and needed to find.

I don’t know about YOU, but I’d like to know what we can do to even prevent their occurrence.  OR if we can dissolve blood clots naturally ourselves – at home – maybe with diet or exercise or maybe there’s even a magic wand we could get to wave over our hands and arms and legs.

Our necks would probably need a good wave with that wand too, and oh GOODNESS!!!

There is no stopping the waving of the wand because we have blood vessels that run from head to foot and front to back.

The condition of all of these is critical to Heart Health…

Natural Ways to Prevent Blood Clots

Blood Clotting Factors

Knowing your blood clotting factor could save your life!  The way your blood clots will determine if you are going to have a heart attack or stroke!

How our blood flows through our arteries,  it’s thickness and stickiness – are the main things that will determine if you are prone to blood clots or not.  That thickness or stickiness is what’s going to determine if your blood is going to clot or the clots even enlarge.

One of our greatest weapons against heart disease and strokes IS diet and exercise.  Diet can have a huge effect on blood clotting factors and the benefits of a good diet on blood clotting factors will begin rather quickly once we change our diet.

Working to prevent blood clots will reduce our chances of having a heart attack quicker than lowering our cholesterol will because cholesterol is a build up on the walls of our arteries and cholesterol is going to make our arteries more and more narrow until the blood just can’t get through.

If we have a thickening of those artery walls we’ve done that to ourselves with diet and that same bad diet is going to make our blood too thick and sticky.

HOWEVER … if our blood is as thin as it should be and not gooey and thick and sticky … it has a better chance of flowing freely through those arteries regardless of the thickening of the wall from cholesterol.

NOW DO NOT TAKE THAT WRONG!!!  We DO need to keep our cholesterol down but we all KNOW that it isn’t the cholesterol that kills us with that sudden heart attack or stroke … it’s the blood CLOT that won’t flow freely through the opening that is there … however narrow or wide it may be unless it’s totally blocked.

Blood Clots and CHOLESTEROL

Cardiologists used to think it was the narrowing of the arteries from plaque build up that triggers our heart attacks.  And many still DO feel that way. But actually – it’s the BLOOD CLOT ITSELF that is the cause of 80 to 90% of heart attacks and strokes.  SO we can take those dangerous statins all we want to try to prevent build up in those artery walls … but if we don’t keep that blood thin so it can flow freely … we’re just spinning our wheels.

NO!!! WE CANNOT just eat what we want and let that plaque continue to build up in our artery walls.  But we can prevent and reverse that naturally TOO.  It just stands to reason and makes super good sense to ME … that even if we have a little too much build up in our artery walls … which most of us do … that blood is still going to flow through freely IF we are eating the kind of diet necessary to keep that blood flowing thinner and less sticky and gooey.

Now it gets a little tricky here – so stay with me – “Several factors strongly affected by diet are critical to whether or not you form clots.  ONE is how prone your platelets are to clump together.  Another factor is blood fibrinogen, and that’s a protein that is a raw material for clot formation.  High circulating levels of fibrinogen are big predictors of possible heart disease and stroke.”  I’m wondering now … if that test is in our blood profile that we get once or twice a year.

AND our “fibrinolytic system” I didn’t even know I HAD one of those … did YOU?   But YUP we do!   And it breaks up and dissolves unwanted and dangerous clots.   The action of this clot dissolving activity … along with fibrinogen levels is the number ONE determinant of heart disease – many cardiologists believe.  That’s too complicate for ME to figure out.  I’ll just try to get on a better blood thinning diet and trust their word.

Blood Clots and BLOOD THINNERS

Most all of us have had to stop taking aspirin before surgery or even tooth extractions. If it’s going to thin the blood down THAT well, why are they prescribing dangerous drugs to do the same thing?

They say “aspirin can cause bleeding in the tummy and other tummy irritations”  WELL SO!!!  Those DRUGS cause all kinds of weird things they read off on television commercials – like blindness, stroke, heart attacks, the list is so long they have to do double commercials to get all the side effects in!

So why not just eat a healthy diet and take an aspirin?  THEN if you get a woozie tummy from the aspirin, just back off of it for a couple days.  Your blood is going to stay thin during that time … your woozie tummy will go right away AND you’ll still have your vision, all your arms and legs, probably won’t have to give away your life insurance money just yet and even without other horrific side effects.

Blood Thinning Foods

There are certain common everyday foods that really are super good heart healthy foods.  They affect the blood and have the ability to make our blood flow more freely!

My favorite of the foods with blood thinning ability IS fatty fish and it just can’t be beat for it’s effectiveness.

We all know that fish oil regulates how the blood flows and clots so this just all makes good sense.  Salmon, Mackerel, Tuna, sardines.  “Eating fatty fish literally changes the shape of blood platelets so they can’t lock together to form unwanted blood clots,”  according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  They say “When you eat fish oil, your platelets release much less of the substance that makes blood platelets stick together.”

Now there are other foods that help to keep our blood from getting too thick.  Garlic and Onions, hot chili peppers or cayenne, cloves, ginger and black mushrooms.

We all know the story about how good – red wine is for your arteries and heart health.  But YOO HOO – guess what the main ingredient in that wine IS that makes it so heart healthy?  It’s Resveratrol and that’s a substance found just under the skin of dark red grapes.  SO you don’t NEED to drink wine AT ALL for a healthy heart.  You can drink plain old Welch’s Grape Juice.  And it’s proven that the dark Welch’s Grape juice  is just as beneficial.  It just take 3 times more grape juice than wine … but HEY when you’re done with your grape juice you’ll still know your last name and where you DRANK that grape juice AND you probably won’t have a police record when you wake up the next morning.

Welch’s 100% Grape Juice and Fischer’s Natural Walnuts – A LIFESAVER Snack

Welch’s 100% Grape Juice reduces the risk of blood clots, helps maintain a healthy blood pressure, reduces bad cholesterol and relaxes the blood vessels.

A group of 15 patients who already showed signs of cardiovascular disease, including plaque constricted arteries, were asked to drink a tall glass of grape juice daily for 14 days.   JUST 14 DAYS!!!

After those 14 days, blood tests revealed that LDL oxidation in those patients was significantly reduced and an ultrasound on each one  showed changes in their artery walls indicating their blood was flowing more freely.

Most researchers recommend 12 oz of Welch’s 100% Grape Juice a day – but that can easily be accomplished by just drinking a couple of small glasses twice a day in place of your cola or glass of milk that you grab for a quick pick me up.

AND THEN – if you add just 12 to 15 Walnuts a day – over a short 3 month period – that will reduce the risk of stroke or clogging arteries by a whopping 70%.   Those 12 to 15 walnuts a day will also – lower overall Cholesterol, improve good cholesterol and is good for your memory!!!.
Those walnuts are loaded with good fats and fiber so they will also decrease your appetite and keep your blood sugar level.  They’ll also give you an energy boost and curb your appetite.

Walnuts are high in potassium, iron, zinc and protein and will improve depression, dementia and circulation.

SO – how do you work in 12 to 15 WALNUT halves or pieces a day?   You leave off the donuts or Twinkies and have a healthy snack mid morning and mid afternoon – with 6 or 7 walnut halves or good size pieces – and 5 or 6 ozs of Welch’s 100% Grape Juice.   AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE BY DOING THAT???   You have decreased your chances of heart attack or stroke TREMENDOUSLY – and you’re having 2 healthy snacks a day to boot – that will also energize you instead of zap your energy.

We keep a small bowl of walnuts on the little table in the kitchen all the time.  I put out fresh walnuts each morning  and keep the rest in the frig.  When we need a snack – we grab a hand full of walnut pieces and drink down about 6 oz of Welch’s Grape Juice.  And I buy the big bag of Fischer’s Natural Walnuts at Walmart because they seem to have the best flavor by far.

BENEFITS OF BREAKFAST

DID YOU KNOW skipping breakfast nearly triples your chances of having a heart attack or stroke that day?

The reason being – when we’re sleeping and laying so still our circulation isn’t as good as it is when we’re up and moving about.  SO we wake UP with a sluggish circulation to some extent.  Our blood platelet stickiness is lowest overnight but then it climbs really fast when we wake up.  But then just the simple act of eating a small and healthy breakfast ‘unsticks’ the stickiness of the platelets.  Geeezzz there’s a lot to this Blood Clot story, isn’t there?  No WONDER they don’t want to talk about it much.

We’re not big on breakfast at our house – because it tends to bog us down.  SO after finding this in my research – I started making little healthy breakfast or snack trays with lids – and in those trays I put a few walnut halves – maybe 4-5-6 – a couple cubes of a good cheese – 1 brazil nut (that’s a subject for another story – because just one brazil nut a day – packs a big wallop) – and about 4-5 dark grapes or a dozen raisins.  We often have a little grape juice with that.

But I’m telling you the truth – even at 70 and 71 – we can go like a house afire from 7am until about 3pm and rarely look up.  And spring, summer and fall – we’re doing what I call bug lugging work – extensive gardening – cutting and stacking truck loads of firewood for the winter – and upkeep around our 5 acres and more.  We never ever sit down during the day – unless it’s a really bad stormy day.  SO this really works for us – and we don’t even stop for lunch – we just have an early supper – which was usually put in the crock pot before we headed out that morning.

Blood Clot Prevention Diet

Just eat plenty of fatty fish, garlic, onions, ginger and drink 100% Welch’s Dark Grape Juice.  Restrict fat, especially saturated fat and be sure to eat some of the good anti clotting foods when you eat the unhealthier foods.

YOUR HEALTH IS IN YOUR OWN HANDS

I’ve learned in this extensive study – that 30 minutes of exercise daily can prevent you from having heart and artery problems if you are halfway reasonable with your diet.  ONE HOUR daily will reverse clogged arteries if you watch your diet while you are on the program.  We must start eating to live instead of living to eat.

There was SO MUCH MORE I wanted to share in this blog.  But I’ve gone way too long as it is.  Most of these facts were taken from my old book “Food–Your Miracle Medicine” by Jean Carper

If Jean Carper says it … you can believe it.  She has followed and researched some of the old natural healing gurus and they really knew their stuff.  They didn’t just talk the talk … they walked the walk.

Thanks so much for stopping by … until next time … you are loved!

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Heart Health

DISCLAIMER – This blog is to educate and inform and is intended in no way to treat or personally advise you on your medical needs.  If you are on a blood thinner or have bleeding problems or want to try to turn your health around with diet and exercise … we strongly advise you to do so with the help of your own personal doctor.