Finding Great Health Care

Three Unusual Blood Vessel Issues That Vascular Radiology Can Find

by Fred Davidson

The human body is a strange thing, indeed. It kills off blood vessels and regrows new ones. It reroutes blood in other directions while it regenerates and heals. It even compensates for weird anomalies in your vascular system that are entirely congenital. What it cannot do is diagnose issues within the vascular system. For that, you need vascular radiology and a vascular radiologist. Here are three anomalies that radiological procedures can detect.

Blood Clots

Blood clots are extremely dangerous. They are more likely to occur in people who are sedentary or elderly because the blood is not likely to move when the body is not moving. If there are suspected clots in your body, the tiny scope used to detect the clots is inserted into a blood vessel below the suspected clot and maneuvered up to that area. If there is a clot, the scope will show it on a screen where the radiologist can see it clearly.

Deep Varicose Veins

Most women are aware of varicose veins because they have them bulging from the backs of their legs. What most people are not aware of is a condition where varicose veins are present, but they are deep within muscular and fat tissues. A varicose vein can even occur inside an organ or the brain, where its eruption can be especially dangerous. A vascular radiologist often discovers these hidden varicose veins quite by accident when he or she is looking for another vascular problem.

Spider Nevi

This name suggests a much creepier and more sinister condition in your vascular system. However, a spider nevus is often located closer to the skin. It is a mass of veins that has taken on its own shape, while the "legs" move out in all directions. Some nevi have been found deeper inside the body, and a few can get very large and very dangerous when they are inside body organs. If one vessel in the cluster ruptures, the whole collection bleeds, which is why larger nevi in unusual places can be so dangerous.

There is really no way to untangle these vessels as they generally grow together and are connected on a tissue level. Cutting them out typically is not an option either. It is only when the nevus or nevi threaten your life that a surgeon will take action. In the meantime, you just have to live with these weird arachnid-like clumps of blood vessels in your body.

Share