Laser Treatment for Varicose Veins
Get Rid of Varicose Veins with Laser Treatment
Hello! I am DR. Sudhir, consultant interventional radiologist and varicose vein specialist. I have been working the treatment of varicose veins for the past 10 years. I have been running DR. Sudhir Scan centers and varicose vein clinic Hyderabad.
First of all what are varicose veins? Veins are the blood vessels that carry blood vessels from the legs back to the heart. They have multiple valves. Whenever these valves are filled, the veins dilate and are called as varicose veins. Usually these veins occur in the leg because of the long length there. The main valves, veins affected are the great saphenous veins and the short saphenous veins. This problem can occur at any age group, however women are more commonly affected than men.
Coming to what happens after you are diagnosed with varicose veins and what should be the treatment? Treatment used to be previously surgery. You know surgery has its own problems. First of all they had to give general anesthesia. General anesthesia in which the patient is put to sleep has its own problem and the other alternative was spinal anesthesia. Also the procedure was called stripping wherein the entire vein was cut open and removed. And this led to a lot of loss of blood as well as a lot of pain, swelling and the patient was out of work for almost a month. So now the modality is not yet used. Now we are using the latest treatment called the Endovenous laser treatment.
As you know now in all medical and surgical specialties we are only using lasers to the latest modality of treatment. Lasers give the advantage of reduced bleeding and reduce downtime. Like that similarly in varicose veins specialty also we are using the lasers. In this the entire process is formed and done under local anesthesia. The laser fiber is inserted by a small needle into the vein and once the laser fiber is inserted we check the position of the fiber using ultrasound and then the laser is activated and the vein is obliterated. Once the vein is obliterated in time, the diffused vein will close and the blood will flow back to the heart via another means. The other modality which we use is Insculerio Therapy. The Insculerio therapy is only used for the side branch vein and when there is excess twisting of veins. If there is excess twisting of vein, we cannot insert a laser fiber, so we use Insculerio therapy in those conditions. So regarding laser most patients are having a misconception that they cannot undergo the treatment because of their ill health. However, this is a very safe procedure and almost anyone can do.
In fact the only people who we do not do are patients who are pregnant, because many people develop varicose veins during pregnancy. And once the pregnancy is finished the varicose veins disappear by themselves. So we wait until the pregnancy is done so that we can treat varicose veins. Other contradictions are the presence of active clots in the way we do not want to dislodge any clots from the vein which can travel to the heart. So we do not put anything into the vein when there is an active clot. Old patients, diabetic patients, people with heart problems, asthma all can be treated with the laser treatment. So why us? Our clinic is centrally located in Hyderabad and also we have everything under the same roof. I am a consultant radiologist and I can do Doppler scanning by myself. This will help me to get a better idea about the position of the way and other problems and so this helps me to give a better treatment for my patient.
Also we use the latest equipment, the 1419 NM equipment. This 1419 NM equipment will target the blood vessel wall itself and not the blood. The older wavelengths which were used in the laser, used to cause the clotting of the blood. Now with this new wavelength, instead of clotting of the blood we have direct shrinkage of the blood vessel and this gives a better result. Also we have all the facilities including a lab tilting table. We also have various surgical and skin specialists also here under the same roof who will help in treating of the varicose ulcers. Also we provide attractive treatment packages with up to 6 months duration for the follow-up. So that even ulcers which are long-standing can be treated under the same city.
This is DR. Sudhir Pudi located at Ameerpet Hyderabad. You can contact me through lybrate or walk into my clinic anytime. Thank you.