WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT VEINS CAN HURT YOU!

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT VEINS CAN HURT YOU!

 

Why the “Oklahoma Vein” Experience? What’s different about us?

 

Everywhere in the world vein doctors try to do the same thing for patients: find the deeper vein causing the more visible surface vein problem, and get rid of it somehow.  The only thing is, we have very different ways of going about ridding the patient of that deeper vein, so that the surface vein can be made to easily disappear. Very few vein centers around the world rely on the older stripping type surgeries (“slashing”) to eliminate the deeper culprit vein, though some do, and most nowadays rely on what they consider “gentler” alternatives to the surgery (“burning”), in the form especially of laser and radiofrequency (RF) procedures.

 

But I’m going to tell you something right now. There is nothing “gentle” about boiling, burning, or frying veins at temperatures higher than 120 degrees Celsius! A handbook on vein procedure shouldn’t read like a cookbook or military field manual, as newer and more destructive ways are found to destroy body tissues, as happens sadly with laser and RF. Moreover, and even worse, the main issues with the over-heating syndromes caused by laser and RF are not even limited merely to keeping patients comfortable, whether during or immediately after procedures. Besides this, the over-heating strategies leave more-or-less permanent damage, so that the weeks and even months after the procedure, patients experience the inflammatory and pain-provoking attempts of the body to heal the damage that has occurred due to the heat. Even worse, the body in time attempts to undo the damage, so that “healing” means the bad vein often reopens, to cause more damage. And as if that weren’t bad enough, new veins, brought on by the inflammation-causing heat damage, appear, making it all but a cinch that in time new varicose veins will be seen. But surely this defeats the purpose of treating varicose veins in the first place!

 

 

MAY THE “SLASH-AND-BURN”, RUSH-AND-HUSH ERA OF VEIN TREATMENT REST IN PEACE!

 

We at OVEC are not advocates of the “slash and burn” era of vein care, where either painful incisions and extractions, or high-temperature internal burns, are required. The Oklahoma Vein experience relies first on strategies not just minimally invasive, but ones minimally traumatic and minimally destructive, ones that neither hurt nor damage anything. This then secondly is married to the most advanced vein technologies on the market (VenaSeal), and thirdly brought to the patient with the most innovative and patient-friendly techniques in the world. After all, what good would a cure for anything be, if no one knew how to get it to the disease site, and in a way efficacious for treating that particular disease?

 

THE NEW, OVEC WAY – VenaSeal and its innovative supporting cast

 

Here at OVEC we employ a unique approach that simultaneously makes possible the gentlest as well as most effective treatment. That is something very unusual in medicine and happens here mainly because the change from burning (laser and RF) to gentle sealing (VenaSeal) carried with it a new and important opportunity – a change in treatment philosophy. This had first and foremost a personal aspect for patients. Many patients told us they didn’t like the invasiveness, but also the rushed atmosphere of the older way, a laser-based, insurance-dependent type of practice, and we listened to them and learned from them.  That alone meant real change!

But there was a technical side to this too: if varicose veins are due to failure of the upper leg one-way valves which protect the lower leg veins from the high pressures brought by gravity, then why destroy the entire length of upper leg vein containing the faulty valve, when all one had to do was gently seal or close the very short segment of vein housing the faulty vein? But short of opening the patient and placing a suture, we lacked the ability to effectively seal off the faulty valve from the salvageable, downstream vein which was needing rescue.

For the first time in vein treatment history, the medication known as VenaSeal, a medical adhesive previously used for 50 years or more in other body sites, now was adapted to veins and gave us that more selective, focal-instead-of-entire-vein approach that could remove the effects of the faulty area, yet still redeem or salvage the adjoining area. We call this the upper “high pressure bully”, now being permanently separated from the now protected lower “bullied area”, now no longer victimized! With this approach, and since there is no trauma of any kind, patients often notice a difference right away, even when first standing up to leave after the VenaSeal procedure. The ache, itch, throb, or heaviness often is gone right from the get-go.

NOW, WHAT ABOUT THAT INNOVATIVE SUPPORTING CAST?

So now, we have the game-changer (VenaSeal medical adhesive), but we said nothing about how we erect a supporting cast (associated technology and techniques) worthy of this world-class technology. Advanced technology deserves a world-class delivery system. At OVEC, we use something unheard-of in the world of vein care – customized nerve blocks. We have developed 7 customized nerve blocks designed specifically for vein patients who must begin to move immediately after their procedures and thus cannot tolerate any limitations in strength or movement. To do this, we took advantage of modern ultrasound-guided advances in nerve anatomy and function, and then married this to what was already known in other fields routinely using nerve blocks.

 

The result? A patient experience that has comfort levels much more like “sleep dentistry” than what vein procedures traditionally have been – feeling like a pin cushion at best, or at worst, something a person never wants to undergo again. Is that all? Well, no.

We then found a better way to conduct injections, one especially suited to pesky spider veins that are often stubborn enough to defy the ordinary needles, sclerosant solutions, and injections commonly widespread in the vein field. This innovation alone meant a 40-50% improvement in spider vein elimination over the old way – big news in itself!


USING VENASEAL THE RIGHT WAY – THE “MAGIC WAND” APPROACH

 

 

Finally, we don’t think that even those clinics using VenaSeal worldwide are necessarily using it the best way. Let us explain. Ideally, what we want with a gentle vein procedure is the results one could expect from open surgery, but delivered much like waiving a “magic wand” over the body. Of course we can’t do that, but we can get somewhat close, by imitating an approach originally pioneered in Italy, even though it is there employed for open surgical procedures.  That Italian approach, called CHIVA, means putting little suture ligatures between the bully and the bullied area, so that a physical barrier is interposed between the two, and the previously bullied zone is freed from the pressure overload bully. Even though the CHIVA approach requires surgery and incisions, nonetheless it is ingenious for replacing the old way (removing or brutally stripping large and long vein segments) with a much-gentler, much more precise and focused, method. The results in Europe have been better than before with CHIVA, but that isn’t for our purposes what is most important.

THE MARRIAGE OF CHIVA AND VENASEAL

 

Something very much like the “magic wand” happens when you marry CHIVA and VenaSeal, because you merely inject a drop of glue (medical adhesive) to do what in CHIVA normally requires open placement of a suture through an incision. This way, the protective, anti-pressure, anti-gravitational barrier is placed with a drop of glue just as reliably and securely as with the suture in the open surgery, only with far less  trauma or destructive effects (really none since it is only a small injection).

This then – Voilà! -- is the total OVEC secret, and the reason we “vale la pena” (are worth the effort) as our Hispanic patients would say, and are as our German patients might say “reisenwert” (worthy of traveling to) even though many vein centers are located much closer. Simply put, we offer a best-in-class treatment experience, designed specifically to be that way, for our patients, and all this in a warm, caring, comfy environment.

Call us, or write, if you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas.

 

Dominic M. Pedulla MD, FACC, CNFPMC, ABVM, ACPh

The Oklahoma Vein and Endovascular Center

405-947-2228