Dvt: The Deadly Killer

If you have been stationary for long and you have pain and swelling in your leg, take care, it may be Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), Says Doctors, and Vascular surgeon.

If you have been stationary for long and you have pain and swelling in your leg, take care, it may be Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), Says Doctors, and Vascular surgeon. ”I have dealt with nearly 100 cases of DVT in the recent past and several victims were between the ages 18-35 years.

People more likely to suffer from DVT include those who travel for long hours, continuously work on computers, remain immobile for hours, or those who ride a bike for long, etc. A blood clot forms usually in the calf region which when travels to the lungs can result in heart failure.

In acute cases, patients survive for less than 30 minutes', if not attended. To avoid DVT, people should drink plenty of fluids or rail journey, move ankles frequently and elevate your legs a bit before going to sleep.”

Being a couch potato can be harmful to one's feet is equally bad, if not worse, say vascular surgeons. Jawans of the armed forces and police personnel, counter sales staff at shops and women doing their household chores are at risk of getting affected with Varicose Veins as their work mostly involves maintaining a standing posture, they say.

“When we stand the ankles take all our weight. In a normal person, on standing, the weight of blood is transmitted to the ankle the column of blood into small compartments and reduces the pressure at the ankle.

“However, when the valves are spoilt, the weight of the entire blood column is transmitted to the ankle (which is increased to more than 10 fold). This leads to distressing complications like profuse bleeding, discoloration and ulcers,” says Doctors.

A vascular surgeon provides a service concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases affecting arteries, veins and lymphatic.

Reflux to have long term success. Once all the needles have been inserted and held in place by tapes then the patient is asked to lie and the leg is elevated to 45 degrees, to empty the veins. 0.5 - 1.0 ml is injected and there should be no pain, irritation or burning sensation.

These occur due to extravasation and injection must be stopped at once. At the site of each injection, apply dental role and hold in place by a tape. Elastic bandage is applied from the toes to 3 inches above the most proximal injection. Elastic stocking are placed above the elastic bandage for additional compression.

The length of compression varies according to the preference of the operator. Some give no compression but most give it for 3-7 days. Histopathological studies show that fibroblastic healing needed for obliteration of medium size varicosities is 12 days.

All patients must walk in the clinic for 30 minutes for 3 reasons -

1. If any allergic reaction is seen it can be treated.

2. Comfort of the elastic compression can be assessed.

3. To stimulate the deep system to wash away any sclerosant that may have accidentally entered the deep veins.

Treatment of talengiectatic blemishes (microsclerotherapy)

It is important to obliterate the source of venous hypertension through a minute incompetent perforator. This has to be identified by a careful doppler examination. This treatment may fail because the sclerosant does not reach the feeding vein in concentration enough to obliterate it.

It may be difficult to identify the feeding vessel and in this case the sclerosant is injected into the site where the telangiectasias converge.