Doppler: diseases — симптомы, диагностика и лечение

Varicose veins are persistent dilation of the saphenous veins of the legs due to incompetence of the venous valves. Blood that should move from bottom to top partially flows back and stretches the vein. Many people consider varicose veins to be a purely cosmetic problem and wait for years until they “get in the way.” In fact, this is a progressive disease: without treatment, it leads to swelling, darkening of the skin, trophic ulcers and thrombophlebitis. At the same time, at an early stage, treatment is simple and outpatient.

A stroke is an acute circulatory disorder in the brain, in which a section of brain tissue stops receiving oxygen and dies. This is a condition where literally minutes count: every minute without blood flow, about two million nerve cells die. That is why the main thing that everyone should know is not the names of drugs, but how to recognize a stroke in a minute and immediately call an ambulance. Trying to “lie down,” take a blood pressure pill, or wait until the morning is the most common and most expensive mistake.

Atherosclerosis of the arteries of the lower extremities is a narrowing or complete closure of the vessels supplying the legs due to plaques in their walls. The muscles receive less blood than required during exercise, and the person begins to stop every few hundred meters due to pain in the calves. This pain, which goes away after a minute or two of rest, is called intermittent claudication and is almost always attributed to age, fatigue or the back - in fact, it is an early and very reliable sign of arterial disease. It is important to understand it not only because of the legs: a person with damage to the arteries of the legs has a much higher risk of heart attack and stroke, because the plaques are rarely found in only one place.

Thrombophlebitis is an inflammation of the vein wall with the formation of a blood clot. It is fundamentally important to distinguish between two situations: thrombophlebitis of the superficial veins, which is visible and palpable as a painful dense cord under the skin, and deep vein thrombosis, which is almost invisible from the outside, but is what causes pulmonary embolism - a life-threatening condition. Therefore, if there is sudden unilateral swelling of the leg with pain, you should not warm or rub the leg, but urgently do an ultrasound of the veins.

Chronic venous insufficiency is a condition in which the veins in the legs cannot cope with the return of blood to the heart. The blood stagnates below, the pressure in the veins of the leg increases, fluid and proteins leak into the tissues, and the skin itself gradually changes: first, swelling in the evening, then itching and darkening, then a dense area fused with the underlying tissues, and the result is a trophic ulcer. It is important to separate two concepts that are confused in everyday life. Varicose veins are dilated subcutaneous veins, what is visible to the eye. Venous insufficiency is a dysfunction that can exist without a single visible vein, for example after deep vein thrombosis. Therefore, “the veins don’t protrude, that means everything is fine” is an incorrect reasoning.

Varicocele is an enlargement of the veins of the spermatic cord, essentially varicose veins of the testicle. It occurs very often, in the vast majority of cases on the left, and often does not bother you at all. The main question with this diagnosis is not “is there a varicocele”, but “does it affect the testicle and fertility” - it is the answer that determines whether surgery is needed or observation is sufficient.