LBS - Vascular Institute - Venous Disease

Venous disease is often seen in varicose or spider veins.

Dr. William Harris with the Vascular Institute of Chattanooga talks about the different issues that exist with the disease.

Https://www.vascularinstituteofchattanooga.com/

[Music] welcome to local business spotlight everyone i'm troy thompson joining me today is dr harris from the vascular institute of chattanooga welcome to the show my friend thanks troy nice to meet you tell everyone at home a little bit about the institute here to begin with vascular institute of chattanooga was started about five years ago by dr christopher lasar he's our senior partner it's grown to the point where we have over 90 employees now we have four surgeons and nine nurse practitioners and we treat the whole spectrum of vascular disease for southeastern tennessee and the whole southeast is a region we take patients from all over the southeast from alabama georgia south carolina north carolina and of course southeastern tennessee all right well let's just talk a little bit about venus disease now there's vagus veins there's spider veins there's all different types of issues when it comes to this disease can we break it down a little bit sure venous disease is most basically seen in varicose veins or spider veins and that's a result typically of venous insufficiency so the their valves and the veins veins are very very thin walled unlike the arteries whereas you feel the pulse in your artery and your in your wrist that has muscle in the walls of it the veins are very thin walled and don't have muscles and they have valves which prevent the blood flow from pooling back down the lower legs and those valves can wear out in some people and that's why you get veins that dilate and it's a sign of aging too it happens over age but we also want people to know that it's not just aging also a lot of people women get them yes so we see it most often in females females who've been pregnant but we also see it in people who stand on their feet for long periods of time and who are in working jobs in which you know we see them in chefs chefs are very common in which we see them or people who work in a kitchen or who teachers who are on their feet all the time teach you dr william you say disease it is a disease so let's just you know people don't think of venus or varicose veins as a disease because when we hear disease we hear cancer right we hear those serious words how is this an actual disease venous disease actually kills a tremendous number of people in the united states every single year deep venous insufficiency and compression of the veins can lead to deep venous thrombosis or dvt and dvt can lead to pulmonary embolism which is a clot that travels up to the lungs and it's actually the second um most frequent cause of sudden death in the united states it kills upwards of a hundred thousand people every single year that's insane it's amazing so um it's sort of a silent killer because so many people walk around without everything knowing they have such a thing which can cause blockage of the vein and that vein we know that blockages of veins can cause clot formation if we see that we're getting a vein protruding on our leg is that something we should come oh my gosh we're going to go and see dr harris it's just a vein that's bulging out it doesn't bother you that's not something you should ever really really worry about right um but if you what's a warning sign a warning sign is um swelling skin discoloration fatigue in the leg pain pain obviously so there's pain so anytime you have something like that you should definitely see your provider and they can get you referred to have asked your provider for further evaluation one question before we go um it is a treatable disease 100 but there are different types of procedures oh yes depending on the issue right and most of them are done in outpatient setting in an office such as this we can use sometimes we use lasers sometimes we actually cut out the veins sometimes we actually have to put stents in veins to treat them there's a whole number of new and emerging technologies too to better treat the patient and a more minimally invasive well dr harris great information i can't wait to come back and see you again anytime and if you have veins yes exactly exactly fix them we appreciate you thanks if you want to find out more information there it all is up on the screen for you vascular institute of chattanooga dr harris and the team over here will take care of all your [Music]