My varicose veins are caused by failure of a valve in the upper thigh.
Although heart valves are replaced, my doctor never heard of replacement of a valve in the leg nor could he give me a reason this is not done.
Is it ever done and, if not, why?
This is not my area of expertise, but I can hazard an educated guess. The valves in veins are tiny thin wispy structures, just a few notches more substantial than the film of a snot bubble. Veins themselves are narrow little tubes, difficult to do surgery in there. Hence you’d be looking at a highly intricate and delicate operation, oders of magnitude more difficult than getting toothpaste back in the tube. Much much easier to strip out the incompetent veins, scar them down, or fill them with goo. And doing those easier things doesn’t have any major drawbacks compared to the theoretical microsurgical possiblity of replacing the valves.
I suppose someone could, rather than “replacing” the valves, devise a small stent-like structure that would fit inside the existing vein, and have in it some sort of backflow preventing doodad, that would function like a valve. They could be made in various diameters such that they would fit snugly in the vein, and be put in endovascularly, a minor procedure. Now that’s an idea.
Better call up my patent attorney.
[QUOTE=Is it ever done and, if not, why?[/QUOTE]
Is not relavant but your question should be “What should be done about Varicose Veins?”
A comprehensive answer is to be found at:
Though this thread is so old, it speaks to me. I recently and unknowingly nicked a leg vein rinsing off soap in the shower. Even though I tried to stem the vein, it spurted out what was later determined to be about three pints.
It’s a good thing I had my cell phone on the bathroom table so I was able to call 911. The EMTs came in through my unlocked door and drove me to hospital. Strangely I was conscious the whole time.
The doctor covered my vein with glue and showed me on blood tests that I was deficient in nine tests. They reviewed my previous medical care and also lifestyle choices but found it hard to find pertinent advice. My lifestyle doesn’t seem to have risk factors for this since I seem to make good choices
So I’m off work for a week to have four appointments with my doctor. I’ve got other obviously swollen veins on my legs so will apparently have to get some stripped or injected with some saline solution.
I’ll bet other Dopers have had similar experiences so would be surely open to advice of any kind.
So I was having sclerotherapy for this tomorrow. I 'm enthusiastic about it and can wear compression socks from now on. But not being able to wash my legs and feet for a week is a nasty restriction. Gross! Has anyone else had sclerotherapy?
I went in for the same sclerotherapy on the other leg this afternoon. I’ll bet some of you have had the treatment. It’s weird when they injected nitrogen into a vein. Then the RN and ultrasounds tech lifted up the leg and the doctor squeezed the whole leg to get it all through the vein.
But the weirdest part for me is when all three young women started yanking the compression stocking all the way up to my inner thigh. I was in moderate pain but laughing out loud that I’m twenty years older than the three staff helping me out. Of course it was normal procedure but still somehow struck me as hilarious.