So much progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of vein disease in recent decades that it’s difficult to even compare “then” with “now.” In the “bad old days” (only a couple of decades ago), you often had to go into a hospital, undergo general anesthesia, and submit to invasive diagnostic procedures just to find out whether you were sick.
Thanks to advances in medical technology, modern procedures used to detect vein disease are nothing like this. Visualization technologies like ultrasound allow your New Orleans vein specialist to look beneath the surface of the skin without making any incisions, and without requiring any anesthesia. A venous health screening at your local vein clinic in Covington can be completed in about an hour, and is completely painless and non-invasive.
What a venous health screening is like
As performed by Dr. Randall S. Juleff and his associates at La Bella Vita Laser and Vein Center, a vein health checkup starts with asking the patient to talk about their symptoms, their own medical history, and (because vein disease is hereditary) their family’s medical history. We also ask questions about your general lifestyle, because factors such as whether you smoke, whether you have given birth or are taking hormonal drugs such as birth control pills, and how much exercise you get represent risk factors for vein disease.
A general physical examination usually follows, during which we assess your overall health and then perform a number of non-invasive tests based on the answers to the questions we asked earlier. For example, naturally we measure your blood pressure, but if you complained of weakness or achiness in your legs we might check it in two locations to determine the ankle-brachial index, a measure of how efficiently your blood is flowing. Finally, if the initial questions revealed that you have a high risk of developing vein disease, we use Doppler ultrasound to look at your veins directly. This enables us to detect any structural abnormalities, but also enables us to see if blood is flowing properly through the veins, or whether there are obstructions such as blood clots blocking the flow.
That’s it? I thought it would be more traumatic than that
Many people do. That’s why we write informative articles like this, to clear up misconceptions about vein disease and how it’s diagnosed. If you’re happy to hear that the screenings are this fast and painless, you’ll probably be even happier to learn that actual treatment of vein diseases we may find are equally fast and painless. Almost all of the treatments we offer to eliminate varicose veins, spider veins, or dangerous blood clots can be performed in the comfort of our New Orleans vein clinic, with no need to ever go to a hospital.
So if you’re ready to stop wondering and find out the exact status of your vein health, just pick up a phone and call us to schedule your own screening. You’ll be happy you did.
