Keeping Healthy: Vascular Surgery
By: Administrator
Updated: April 26, 2012
Vascular surgery can range from the cosmetic side of spider veins and varicose veins to dealing with aneurism disease of arteries, obstruction of arteries, to patients who've had strokes or dialysis.
But what can you do for your vascular health? Patients who smoke have anywhere from two-- to seven times the increased risk of having peripheral vascular disease. Being overweight or having a sedentary lifestyle are issues the health care community is continues trying to address in the American population. And when it comes to vascular diseases, it's no exception.
At Little Falls Hospital, Doctor Danes runs a clinic once a week where we see patients we can diagnose. They have a vascular lab, which helps them figure out if what they believe is a problem, is an actual problem. One of the problems Danes believes is everything America doesn't do.
He says, "The risk factors for peripheral vascular disease are family genetics. There is definitely a disposition towards artery disease in certain families' diabetes increasing your risk about two times. High cholesterol, or hypertension, high blood pressure, and the one that's really the most preventable is smoking."
Cat scans, and MRI'S give doctors like Doctor Danes a window into the body. Surgery is performed at Little Falls Hospital and some of the more complex surgeries also take place at the Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown.
Once you are operated on by a vascular surgeon, you develop a lifelong relationship with that surgeon because there is the potential for scars to form on arteries. And that is something that needs to be monitored. If lifestyle changes aren't made, problems can come back.
"One of the nice things about vascular surgery is kind of a relationship that you don't get in a lot of other surgical specialties."
Working in this community, Danes says seeing his patients outside the hospital living in a tight knight community makes his work all the more important. He says, "Sometimes people are confined by their disease and when you can allow them out of that, it's great."
But what can you do for your vascular health? Patients who smoke have anywhere from two-- to seven times the increased risk of having peripheral vascular disease. Being overweight or having a sedentary lifestyle are issues the health care community is continues trying to address in the American population. And when it comes to vascular diseases, it's no exception.
At Little Falls Hospital, Doctor Danes runs a clinic once a week where we see patients we can diagnose. They have a vascular lab, which helps them figure out if what they believe is a problem, is an actual problem. One of the problems Danes believes is everything America doesn't do.
He says, "The risk factors for peripheral vascular disease are family genetics. There is definitely a disposition towards artery disease in certain families' diabetes increasing your risk about two times. High cholesterol, or hypertension, high blood pressure, and the one that's really the most preventable is smoking."
Cat scans, and MRI'S give doctors like Doctor Danes a window into the body. Surgery is performed at Little Falls Hospital and some of the more complex surgeries also take place at the Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown.
Once you are operated on by a vascular surgeon, you develop a lifelong relationship with that surgeon because there is the potential for scars to form on arteries. And that is something that needs to be monitored. If lifestyle changes aren't made, problems can come back.
"One of the nice things about vascular surgery is kind of a relationship that you don't get in a lot of other surgical specialties."
Working in this community, Danes says seeing his patients outside the hospital living in a tight knight community makes his work all the more important. He says, "Sometimes people are confined by their disease and when you can allow them out of that, it's great."
