Shams: Wemby OUT for the Remainder of the Season

[Mal]

Its sounds like Wemby will be fine after treatment

[spurraider21]

[Bruno]

It sucks. I just hope Wemby will be able to have an healthy life. He is truly a great young man.

[Joseph Kony]

[Raven]

6th seed in the Draft?

yes sir.

[Seventyniner]

Three things usually cause DVTs. Injury, a predisposition for clotting (like something genetic or cancer) and stasis (the blood not circulating-make sure you get up and walk around during those long haul flights, lol).
Guessing his was injury.
Spurs will likely check whether he has a predisposition, but that seems unlikely as it might have appeared by now in a professional athlete playing a contact sport.
He will be put on a blood thinner like eliquis, or Xarelto if he ended up with a pulmonary embolism (PE).
PE would be worst case scenario.
If it's really fresh, Eliquis can make it go away very quickly and can completely resolve it.
Unfortunately, one you do get a DVT, you are predisposed for another one.

Even if the cause is injury and not one of the other two?

[CIAPop]

Even if the cause is injury and not one of the other two?

Sadly, yes. Post phlebitic syndrome. More likely to occur in the same spot.
Hopefully it was from injury and not due to something like thoracic outlet syndrome. Might need surgery for that one.

[Chomag]

I'm really glad they caught it. Get well Wemby

[Das Texan]

Time to pump up those trade value figures for guys like Vassell and Keldon baby!

[Mr. Body]

I don't really care about us or the Spurs. I want him to have a healthy life. And I hope that's playing basketball at a high level, which is what he is meant to do.

[Jordan Jackson]

Didn't know you could get a blood clot from an injury. TIL, crazy stuff

Any type of trauma can cause one. My sibling developed one as a result of the way a picc line was inserted.

Pretty easy to treat since they were young at the time. No issues since.

Victor will be fine. He such a good kid - no way the basketball Gods punish him like that. Sounds like a basketball injury/trauma.

Spurs do need to get a proper bigman and do a better job of protecting Wemby’s body. He really took a beating this season. Some of it was over the top.

[Das Texan]

Also get well real soon Vic.

[rascal]

My concern as well. Could just be a PR move to calm the masses while they figure out what's going on with him.

Exactly

They need to remain positive but more likely Spurs are not sure at this time.

[LeBowen]

Spurs do need to get a proper bigman and do a better job of protecting Wemby’s body. He really took a beating this season. Some of it was over the top.

People were ting on him but CP3 was our second best rebounder in a lot of games. Wemby always had multiple opponents on him when trying to get contested rebounds.

[Killakobe81]

Welp. Tank for Flagg begins!

How serious is this injury? Will he play basketball ever again?

CIA pop made the call from his convalescence bed …
You will tank!!!
Wemby will sit … even if injury is minor.
David and Timmy
Wemby and Flagg book it!
And when it DOES happen I don’t t wanna hear about the NBA being rigged

[Ice009]

Man, not sure if you're trying to cheer us up, but I don't care about getting the number 1 pick or anything like that. I'd rather Victor be OK and back to 100%.

Why couldn't it just be a freaking broken leg or broken arm or something. I would have been much happier with a regular type of injury.

[mikec]

Does discovering this earlier makes a difference ? Not like before a stroke, but as with cancer

The main concern with a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) is that it can embolize/break off and travel to the lungs and kill you. It's more of a concern with the legs than the arms. It would be rare for a blood clot from the arms to embolize. It's hard to say if we are catching this early. He may have had this for awhile. A blood clot in the arms/legs usually presents as significant swelling/pain but sometimes it may be just a minor ache you can mistake for a muscle pull. And then later find out as the pain gets worse and you get checked out that it's a blood clot.

[mikec]

Thanks for weighing and good to have you here!

As a hematologist, what are your thoughts on the possibility of Wemby playing while on blood thinners? My experience when I had to be on blood thinners briefly (following a minor stroke) was that doctors were very hesitant to have me doing anything that presented a bleeding risk.

Thanks for being here to lend actual expertise to concerned fans!

I agree with your doctors. If you are on blood thinners and fall and hit your head diving for a loose ball or get smashed by someone's elbow, you are at risk of intracranial bleeding. The good thing about the blood thinners we use now is they work very quickly to thin out your blood. And if you have a bleeding complication, you stop it and it is out of your system quickly and then we give antidotes.

[mikec]

thanks for the info, this is good stuff.

i guess ill ask you what i asked my doctor buddy (not a hemotologist, so you'd be a more authoritative figure to ask)... would DVT in the shoulder, without a clot in the lungs, have any explanatory power for shortness of breath or lack of energy?

We call these upper extremity DVTs. The patient will usually present with sudden or worsening shoulder/arm/neck pain or discomfort. I've not seen shortness of breath/fatigue as a presenting symptom unless there is a concurrent pulmonary embolism. I really hope Victor does not have a pulmonary embolism.

[mikec]

This PT says he thinks Wemby will be alright long-term. 3 months of blood-thinners and then reevaluate.

Yes, agreed on minimum 3 months of blood thinners. His doctors will repeat another ultrasound in 3 months to see if the blood clot is still present or not. Sometimes there may still be residual clot remaining but it is scar.
If this is Paget-Schroetter syndrome which I suspect, he will be seeing vascular surgery to determine if surgery is needed. Six months of blood thinners is sometimes recommended.

[mikec]

Funny you should mention cancer.

My friend with the lower leg blood clots was sent to see an oncologist even though it's not cancer.

For some reason oncologists seem to have some connection with/insight into this situation.

We are trained in both oncology and hematology.

[mikec]

OK, that doesn't sound good. I thought that might have been the cause of his fatigue, struggling to breath.

I hope Victor recovers for his sake, not for any of us as fans. The kid loves basketball and works super hard. Great person too. It hurts looking back at how hard he played in the all-star game while having this happen to him.

Hopefully it's a good thing the Spurs picked this up sooner.



Thanks for posting. I really appreciate you giving us some general information about it.

I asked/posted about it earlier, as I thought the fatigue and breathing may be because of this. If it is not related, what could be causing those issues? Any idea on that? Those are the issues that had me wondering what is going on with him the past week or two. You could clearly see he was struggling out there.

I would want to know if he also has a pulmonary embolism that can cause fatigue/shortness of breath. Upper extremity DVT generally should not affect breathing.

[spurraider21]

thanks for all the info mikec

this is all good stuff and tracks w/ a lot of the internet doctors are saying. really have to hope whatever conditioning issues vic had really were allergy attacks and not related to this...

[Leetonidas]

I assume it's a combo of the allergies and being fatigued from the blood clot. Wemby already gets gassed easily because of his size. Add allergies and the fatigue from dealing with this issue unbeknownst to him and his looking out of it for awhile makes a lot more sense

[mikec]

How do you know he'll have to stay on them the rest of his life? Staying on blood thinners doesn't sound good at all.

How long you stay on blood thinners depends on what is the initial inciting event. Let's say you were hospitalized after a big surgery like a hip replacement and you are laid out in bed for weeks. Or you were traveling by plane for more than 10 hours without moving much and at your destination were mostly sedentary. Or you are pregnant or just delivered a baby. Those are events that can precipitate a deep vein thrombosis and we call them provoked. For them, we recommend minimum 3 months of blood thinners, sometimes up to 6 months if there are ongoing cir stances (ie still bedbound). The reason why it's 3 months is the risk of getting a 2nd blood clot is very low. Sometimes there is an underlying genetic predisposition. Victor may be getting tested for an underlying genetic condition. The risk would be higher if let's say he has a family history of unexplained blood clots. Sometimes a blood clot is a sign of a cancer. Other times it comes on out of the blue without and we call these unprovoked. I see these patients a lot. One day they are fine, the next day their leg is big and swollen or they can't breathe. These patients we recommend staying on blood thinners indefinitely because the risk of getting a 2nd blood clot is high.