This colleague describes her experiences of developing thrombophlebitis following varicose vein surgery. This is clotting of blood in the superficial veins which have been treated. Thrombophlebitis causes a tender red lumpy vein. The tenderness goes in about a week but the lumps can take weeks to dissolve away.
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Do you mind introducing yourself, or would you rather say I had a procedure? I'd say I had a procedure. Okay, let's start with that. Tell us about your experience of your varicose vein surgery. Well, I've had a procedure, and it was okay for the week, and then I got, what's the name of the thing I got? I think you got that hard, tender lump, didn't you, along the vein? A hard, tender lump, and quite red and hot. And it lasted, what, about a week, three days? Well, it only lasted about four days, well two days, and I went to get some antibiotics. See, we'll have to get this story right fast before I start talking, because I'm not going to say I had to go and get antibiotics. No, you can do. Can you? Yeah. You went and you saw a doctor in the emergency department and they thought it might be an infection. An infection, so I was given some antibiotics. And the thing settled down anyway a few days later. It wasn't at the puncture site where the needle went in. It was up the leg, where the vein was. So this is a really interesting story. This, I think you had, was what we call superficial thrombophlebitis, which is the blood clotting in the vein that we intentionally damage with the ablation. And I think probably we talked to you about it before and said it can happen, it lasts about a week, and then it settles down. Yeah, it can happen because they've got the information to say it can happen. You read the information, so you knew it was happening, but it's still difficult to tell the difference between an infection and from a phlebitis if you're not experienced in it, and the right thing to do is to see a doctor, and it may be that we shouldn't have given you the antibiotics, but you had them, and things have resolved anyway. Resolved anyways, yeah. So that's a nice story, and your leg feels better after? Better after, yeah, now it feels much better today than it did yesterday. And the reason you had the operation, the legs swelling and discomfort overall better? It's better, yeah. That's superb. It's not swelling as much down there. Excellent, all right, so happy to hear that. Thank you.
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