Vein And Laser Clinic Hints – Allow DR. Michael Nguyen To Perform A Successful Vein Repair Procedure On You
Do you know if you suffer from venous insufficiency? This is a vein disease that affects your leg veins. When your valves can no longer stop deoxygenated blood from flowing back to the veins in legs, you have venous insufficiency (venous reflux or venous disease). Since blood stops to flow toward the heart, some of it pools in your leg veins. And when things get to this point, your only way out is to undertake a vein repair treatment process.
It is the only way to ensure that your problem does not become chronic. People who wait too long to seek help despite seeing symptoms end up with a chronic vein insufficiency condition. We would advise you to visit a vein and laser clinic near you once you notice weird symptoms in legs. Even if you have family members who suffer from this disease, it does not mean that you cannot be cured. It takes only you to stop ignoring your symptoms and seeking vein repair help.
How common is venous insufficiency?
Any leg and vein institute will confirm that women are more vulnerable than men when it comes to developing venous insufficiency. According to the University of Chicago Medical Center, ladies between ages forty and forty-nine years and males between ages seventy and seventy-nine will develop a venous disease. Besides age, people who have a history of having blood clots and those who have obesity, pregnancy, cancer and muscle weakness are very likely to have venous insufficiency.
Due to this condition, legs can have varicose veins, phlebitis (vein swelling), venous ulcers, skin discolorations, leg cramps, itch, fatigue, heaviness and worsening pain. If you tend to work for several hours when seated or standing, chances are high that you can suffer from high blood pressure in your leg veins. If such a thing keeps on happening, you could gradually develop a venous insufficiency condition. So, seek vein repair now to avoid issues in future.
How a good leg and vein institute can diagnose venous insufficiency
To discover whether your symptoms are as a result of venous disease, your physician will examine you physically and thorough direct observations. And to confirm their answers so as to provide the right vein repair options, your doctor might carry out the following tests.
- Venogram – When performing a venogram, your doctor will place an IV (intravenous) contrast dye into the affected vein. This substance is known to cause the vein to appear thick on an X-ray image. This allows the physician to view the vein clearer on the X-ray picture.
- Duplex Ultrasound – This is another test that is commonly done to test the direction and speed of the blood flow in your leg veins. A doctor in your preferred vein and laser clinic will place special gel on your skin and then press a transducer (a tiny hand-held device) against it. This device makes use of sound waves that bounce back to a computer before producing the images of the blood movement in your vein.
After carrying out the above-mentioned tests, your vein and laser clinic will pick just the right treatment options for you.
Treating venous Insufficiency
There are several different factors that your vein repair doctor must consider prior to treating you. First of all, they must think about the real cause of your condition, current health status and medical history. Still, your vein and laser clinic doctors must study the exact symptoms you are having, your age, the seriousness of your condition and how well you can withstand medicine or medical procedures. Treatments to boost blood flow in leg veins include:
- Compression stockings – The basic method of treating venous reflux is to wear compression stockings. They tend to exert pressure on the ankle and lower leg area to promote the blood flow and reduce swelling. Compression stockings vary in size (length) and strengths. Your vein repair doctor will help you select the right stockings to boost treatment.
- Improve your posture when seated. Mostly, avoid crossing your legs when seated and make sure that your chair is ergonomic.
- To reduce ankle swelling and restore proper blood circulation, elevate your legs above your heart.
- Avoid staying dormant all day long. It doesn’t matter whether you work while standing up or seated for several hours. Special exercises can boost blood circulation in legs.
Take medicines
Any vein and laser clinic will use medicines prior to subjecting a patient to surgery or another invasive treatment method. These include the following:
- Anticoagulants – These are drugs that cause blood thinning.
- Diuretics – These draw fluid from the body and excrete it via the kidneys
- Trental(pentoxifylline) – These drugs are used to improve blood flow.
Treatment via Surgery
The last resort is surgery in most medical cases as it is an invasive method of treating a disease that causes bad side effects. If a leg and vein institute doctor finds out that your venous insufficiency condition is chronic, he or she might decide to operate on you. Surgery techniques include:
- Surgical vein repair process where problematic valves are corrected
- Vein stripping surgical procedure that entails complete removal of the damaged vein.
- Endoscopic surgery. This is a process where the surgeon inserts a thin tube with a camera inside your sick vein. The camera allows the doctor to see clearly where he or she should tie off the vein.
- Vein bypass surgery occurs when a healthy vein is transplanted from another part of your body. Bypass is only viable if you have a varicose vein in your upper thigh and the condition is so severe. Bypass surgery is only picked up when no other trick that a vein and laser clinic has tried successfully and the sickness is worsening.
- Laser surgery – This is a relatively new method of treating abnormal leg veins. When used, a laser surgery method either closes the faulty vein with strong beams of light that are delivered to a specific area or fades the vein. A vein and laser clinic might select this technique when the patient wants to avoid surgical cuts as it does not involve them.
Ambulatory phlebectomy
This is not a long medical procedure as it is done quickly and accurately in the doctor’s office. An ambulatory phlebectomy treatment for vein treatment entails numbing the affected area of your leg and then pricking it severally to remove tinier varicose veins. Prior to doing the procedure, your vein and laser clinic doctor will discuss the ambulatory phlebectomy procedure with you. They will discuss possible risks, outcomes and expectations. They will want to know if the thing that triggers the problem is varicose veins or blood clots in your superficial or deep veins. By the end of your appointment, your vein repair physician will have known whether an ambulatory phlebectomy procedure could work on its own. If you cannot walk on your own due to pain, ambulatory phlebectomy is not right for you. Those who can comfortably be treated via this procedure might experience the following:
- Short-lived bruising and swelling
- Inflammation due to tiny vein segments that stay in your skin
- Numbness due to injury to the adjoining sensory nerves
- An allergic reaction to the local anesthesia drug
Despite having the above-mentioned complications, patients can walk as soon as the vein and laser clinic physician offers treatment and does their normal activities. Obviously, patients should limit strenuous activities and wear the recommended pair of compression stockings to reduce pain.
Sclerotherapy
Your leg and vein institute might recommend sclerotherapy treatment for varicose veins and spider veins. The traditional technique is hardly used to eliminate large varicose veins. These respond well to catheter procedures. Sclerotherapy entails an injection with a sclerosing agent or chemical. It is usually administered into the sick vein to make it useless and unable to carry blood. As the treated vein slowly disappears, the blood flow will re-route to healthier veins with functional valves. Sclerotherapy is ideal for treating small to medium-size abnormal leg veins. Now there is a foam sclerotherapy treatment that has improved vein repair processes a lot.
It’s taking the place of the conventional sclerotherapy vein treatment. All the same, sclerotherapy sessions per vein are about three and one area cannot be treated too soon as it requires adequate time to recover. Your vein and laser clinic will recommend wearing bandages and support stockings for about two days to one week. You may also be required to wear compression support stockings for three weeks depending on the severity of your vein insufficiency and treatment results. While sclerotherapy will treat existing abnormal veins, it will not prevent new ones from forming. Complications can be expected, but most people report minor side effects that do not call for the doctor’s attention. Slight leg or foot swelling along with trivial bruising and pigmentation can occur. Redness and soreness might be noted too, and it will disappear on its own.
Catheter vein procedures
If you have larger veins, your vein repair doctor can opt to do catheter procedures. A catheter, usually a thin tube, is inserted into a vein and then its edge is heated and removed. Heat will cause the vein to close and collapse as the catheter is taken out. One of these techniques is called endovenous ablation. An outpatient procedure, endovenous ablation is done about half an hour after receiving anti-anxiety and pre-op drugs. As well, a reliable leg and vein institute will numb the area via local anesthesia. A tiny incision is often made in the ankle area in order to access the vein. A catheter is then put into the vein via the incision so it can deliver radiofrequency energy to the wall of the vein.
This energy then produces heat that collapses and seals the vein when the catheter is removed. After the closure of the vein, the blood will continue to flow via other healthier veins. A bandage is often placed on top of the incised area to prevent an infection. After undergoing an endovenous ablation treatment, you should avoid standing for too long to heal quickly. In one to two days, however, you should recover fully. This treatment trick is great when a vein repair doctor doesn’t want your patient to undergo a vein stripping surgery.
Isolated varicose veins
If a venous insufficiency condition has triggered isolated varicose veins, then the saphenous veins are not involved. An isolated varicose vein will just be alone anywhere on the extremity, thus it will not be connected to another leg vein. When there is a perforator vein (one that connects the deep leg veins to the surface veins) with leaking valves and dilated walls, then an isolated varicose vein problem can arise. In such a situation, your vein and laser clinic will select a treatment that can treat the isolated vein itself. The chosen treatment trick will not affect your saphenous vein. Sometimes the doctor will use sclerotherapy or phlebectomy to treat an isolated vein.
How to protect yourself from vein insufficiency
If you have people in your family line that have struggled with this condition, chances are that you will as well. While your odds are high, you can do something to protect yourself from a venous reflux disease. The things you can do include the following.
- Avoid sitting or standing in one position for several hours. Instead, get up and make some movements every thirty minutes.
- Start exercising your body regularly, even if it’s just walking.
- Quit smoking cigarettes if you do
- Keep your weight controlled as obesity worsens varicosities
- Wear support stockings if you are nurse or someone who works while standing for several hours.
- Do not ignore symptoms such as pain, discomfort, heaviness and tightness in legs.
Final word
Vein repair is so imperative if you want to avoid chronic vein insufficiency. By having your veins and valves repaired now, you can avoid a future situation that will involve venous ulcers, skin discoloration, and blood clots and so on. By visiting a good vein and laser clinic near you, you can help your doctor arrest a health problem that could worsen in future.