Industrial Workers of the World

Office workers take notice. You are at risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT) from sitting immobile at your desks. A New Zealand study has uncovered the deadly details.

The study to be presented at the annual conference of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand later this month has found prolonged immobility at work is, absolutely, the most common factor shared by DVT patients.

One in three people attending an outpatient clinic reported sitting for eight hours or longer before suffering a venous thromboembolism. Office workers, IT workers and taxi drivers are amongst the absolutely most at risk according to the research from the Medical Research Institute in Wellington. Chances are, the stats are not going to change when you cross the Tasman.

For the Great Fishes sake you evolved to wander and wonder and run across the wide savanna by day and spend the evening partying, feasting (or starving), telling stories and making love. Bit of hunting here: bit of gathering there. This lifestyle capitalism forces you into does you no good at all either physically or psychically. DVT is the formation of a blood clot in a deep vein, most commonly in the legs, which may cause death if untreated.

Its symptoms include pain, swelling, redness and dilated surface veins seen on the skin. You are at risk, fellow workers, because the sitting position impedes blood flow.

Thankfully the impeded blood flow effects mostly the legs and hardly at all the brain. That numbness you feel after the five hour stint in front of the monitor has other causes. So, anyway, use the bit that's working. Or at any rate has blood flow. Look out for the warning signs such as stiff or fidgety legs. You feel stiff or fidgety legs you get up and wander around for a bit. NOW!! Chat to your fellow workers – tell them about the one big union and the transformation of daily life – run off a couple or hundred of subversive pamphlets on the copy machine and make sure everyone gets one although not necessarily everyone knows who it came from. This is good for the brain cells as well as the legs. The small risk puts a little more epinephrine into the system, bounce in the step and straightness in the spine. (Remember the savanna – might be a saber tooth behind that clump of filing cabinets; Remember the tundra - might be a bear behind that distant water cooler) Pace around a bit. Your caged! – in Howard’s world we all are.

But we don't have to like it or take it quietly.

Source of Information: "Deep vein thrombosis threat to office workers" New Zealand Herald 1:00PM Sunday March 11, 2007 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10428219