Thanks to advances that have taken place in the treatment of venous disorders in the last two decades, vein disease should not be as prevalent as it is. Vein disorders can now be treated as quickly and easily as they can be diagnosed – in the comfort of a doctor’s office, and using non-invasive procedures so painless that they don’t even require anesthesia. So why does vein disease still affect over 26 million Americans a year, causing a great deal of suffering, and hundreds of thousands of deaths? The answer to this question is a combination of “too much misinformation” and “too little real information.” Most people on the street would not be able to tell you what “vein disease” is, and most of those who actually have vein disease don’t know they have it.
To correct this situation, in this article doctors from one of the best Maui vein treatment centers are going to take a somewhat light-hearted approach to a serious subject and talk about vein disease in terms of the title of a famous “Spaghetti Western” movie title – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The facts we want to emphasize really do fall into these three categories, so the title is more apt than it might first appear. But because we want to save “the Good” for last, we’ll start at the end and work backward.
The Ugly – vein disease is physically unattractive
The first thing most people think of when they hear the term “vein disease” is its most visible symptom – varicose veins. And if you’re one of the millions of people who have them, you already know what “the Ugly” of vein disease is – you see it in the mirror every day. Varicose veins are so unattractive that many people hide them under long pants and dark stockings because they’re ashamed of how their legs look. Over time, this can actually lead to loss of self-esteem and depression.
But the real ugliness of varicose veins is what causes them, a circulatory disorder called chronic venous insufficiency, or CVI. CVI impairs your immune system and can leave you with painfully swollen legs and ankles and without the energy to stand or walk for more than a few minutes. And the ugliest part of CVI is that if it is left untreated, the varicose veins can become infected and covered with open, bleeding sores that leave your legs literally an ugly mess.
The Bad – vein disease is dangerous and impairs your overall health
In addition to being ugly, CVI and varicose veins are bad for you because they cripple your immune system and significantly increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. That’s pretty bad, but it gets worse because there is a more serious form of vein disease called deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Varicose veins affect the surface veins in your legs, whereas DVT causes blood clots to form in the larger, deeper veins. If these blood clots travel through your blood vessels to the brain they can cause a stroke, and if they travel to your lungs they can cause a pulmonary embolism. Both conditions are potentially fatal, and in fact DVT causes 300,000 deaths every year. Now that is bad.
The Good – vein disease is easily diagnosed and treated
But finally we get to “the Good,” and there is lots of it. Thanks to medical advances like ultrasound, which allows Hawaii vein specialists to look below the surface of the skin without making incisions, vein disease is easy to detect. And most forms of it – including CVI and DVT – are almost as easy to treat. The treatments we offer at our vein treatment center in Hawaii are so fast that many patients have their varicose veins eliminated on their lunch hour – without having to go to a hospital, without the need for anesthesia, and without the need for long recovery periods because there is nothing to recover from.
Dr. Randall S. Juleff treats vein problems using state-of-the-art methods such as sclerotherapy, endovenous laser treatment, phlebectomy, and radiofrequency ablation. These minimally-invasive procedures are so fast and easy that you can walk into our offices with varicose veins or other vein problems and walk out a short time later without them. And all it takes to get one of the best vein doctors in Hawaii on your team to fight the “Bad” and “Ugly” of vein disease is a phone call to Vein Clinics of Hawaii. Give us a call today and set up an appointment for your venous health screening. You’ll be happy you did.
