What do zombies have to do with varicose veins? Well, not much, being undead and bloodless and all, but they do provide the perfect analogy to explain why lumps persist after treatment with sclerotherapy, laser and endo thermal ablation of varicose veins.
A Typical Zombie Movie
Everybody has seen the stereotypical zombie movies, like Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days, where zombies attack a house in an attempt to reach the terrified (and usually increasingly foolish) people inside. At first the house stands strong, and the zombies can only mill around the building, piling up as they try to find an entrance (moaning, blank stares, hands in the air – you can picture it).
Being stiff, dull-witted and generally pretty useless at anything but flesh eating, the zombies obviously have some trouble getting past the defenses a typical house provides. Walls, doors and boarded up windows are all obstacles for the Hollywood zombie – no matter how good their jaws are.
Being stiff, dull-witted and generally pretty useless at anything but flesh eating, the zombies obviously have some trouble getting past the defenses a typical house provides. Walls, doors and boarded up windows are all obstacles for the Hollywood zombie – no matter how good their jaws are.
Zombies & Varicose Veins: The Analogy
In this way, zombies are very much like the macrophages surrounding treated blood vessels, of varicose veins. The blood vessels are thick and unyielding, like the walls of the house the zombies can’t get into. The agitated people safe inside the house can be thought of like a clot in the vessel, which is what causes lumps. But eventually, through sheer numbers and concentrated effort, a weak spot is found in the wall of the vessel and the zombies can bash their way in and get on with the messy business of eating people.
Why do Lumps Persist after Vein Treatment?
Using this analogy, you can understand what happens to varicose veins over a period of time. After the laser, or sclerotherapy, the thick wall vein is resistant to the macrophages who are there to remove the treated vein and resolve inflammation. Once the wall of the vein is breached, these macrophages are able to reach the clot inside the vessel and violently remove it. But because of the thick defenses, or walls and windows if you like, the lumpy treated veins often hang around relatively unchanged for 3 months while the macrophages, or zombies, work to find a defect in the wall. It is only after a further 2 – 3 weeks of ‘flesh eating’ that all of the clot is removed from the vessel and it rapidly disappears.
During this time, the macrophages also absorb all of the iron in the blood, which is quite toxic to macrophages. Often they die as a result, releasing the iron into the surrounding skin and leaving rust coloured marks. Think of iron as a solid baseball bat to the head for a zombie – fatal, but messy.
As long as you can get your head around the fact that the flesh eating zombies in this tale are the good guys, you can now understand why lumps and odd marks often persist for weeks, or even months, after varicose vein treatment.
During this time, the macrophages also absorb all of the iron in the blood, which is quite toxic to macrophages. Often they die as a result, releasing the iron into the surrounding skin and leaving rust coloured marks. Think of iron as a solid baseball bat to the head for a zombie – fatal, but messy.
As long as you can get your head around the fact that the flesh eating zombies in this tale are the good guys, you can now understand why lumps and odd marks often persist for weeks, or even months, after varicose vein treatment.
Varicose Vein Treatments
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