Why do people get varicose veins?
Dr. Adcock: Varicose veins are caused by a number of reasons, a lot of which are not totally understood. We just know varicosities tend to run in families and unfortunately strike women more than men. They are also more frequent with multiple pregnancies, obesity, and a number of other conditions. Describe the vascular surgery procedure you perform to remove varicose veins. Dr. Adcock: First we numb the patient. Then we access the vein and put a little sheath up to work everything through. We then use a radio frequency probe, positioning it where the deep and superficial systems come together in the groin. We put tumescent around the catheter to serve three purposes. The most important one is to anesthetize the area. It also collapses the vein down and protects the surrounding tissues from the radiofrequency energy. If you look at out monitor, you can see the tumescent tracks along the catheter. The bright dot in the center and the fluid around it are the tumescent. It tracks up the sh
