Every 33 seconds, someone in the United States dies from cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer among women and men across most ethnic and racial categories.
About 20% of deaths from cardiovascular disease occur in someone under the age of 65. About 1 in 20 adults aged 20 years or older has coronary artery disease.
If you have symptoms of heart disease or problems with blood flow, your cardiologist may recommend diagnostic testing. Two of the most common diagnostic tests for cardiovascular or venous disease are arterial ultrasounds and venous reflux ultrasounds.
At Texas Heart and Vein Multispecialty Group, our expert cardiologist, Jon-Cecil (JC) Walkes, MD, may recommend diagnostic testing at our offices in Greater Heights, Pearland Market, and throughout the Houston, Texas, area. Once he determines what’s causing your symptoms, he develops a customized treatment plan.
What’s the difference between an arterial ultrasound and a venous reflux ultrasound, and why might you need one and not the other? Here’s an explanation.
The carotid arteries are large blood vessels that carry blood and oxygen to your brain as well as your neck and face. They originate in the heart and travel up each side of your neck.
Your right common carotid artery and your left common carotid artery each split into two branches as they travel from your heart up into your neck and head. The branches on either side are called the internal carotid artery and external carotid artery.
The internal and external carotid arteries split further as they travel upward, creating many small arterial branches. All branches of the carotid arteries nourish the tissues in your neck, head, and brain.
If your carotid arteries become narrowed by hard, fatty plaque that develops inside their walls (known as atherosclerosis), you’re at increased risk for serious cardiovascular and neurological events. Some complications of narrowed carotid arteries include:
We may recommend arterial ultrasound to check the health of your carotid arteries if you have symptoms of a stroke or risk factors for stroke, including a family history of stroke or heart disease. This simple, noninvasive test uses sound waves to explore and examine the interior of your carotid arteries to check for plaque, aneurysms, or narrowing.
The sooner we know that something’s not right with your carotid arteries, the sooner we can start treatment to put you back on the road to health. Treatments for narrowed carotid arteries may include medications, lifestyle changes, and, if necessary, surgery.
A venous reflux ultrasound also uses sound waves to look inside your blood vessels. But instead of looking inside arteries, the venous ultrasound examines your veins, which bring deoxygenated blood back to the heart and lungs.
Our medical team may order venous reflux ultrasound if you have leg symptoms that could be related to faulty veins, such as swelling or varicose veins. We may also look for blood clots or venous reflux.
Clots in your veins are dangerous because they can break off and pass into the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. If you have venous reflux, your blood flows and pools backward, instead of forward, causing varicose veins, leg swelling, and poor circulation.
No matter which ultrasound your doctor orders, the procedure is similar. You simply lie comfortably on the examination table while the technician passes a device called a transducer over the area that your doctor wants to evaluate. They first prepare your skin by applying a gel that helps the transducer glide freely.
The transducer bounces sound waves off your blood vessels. The “echoes” from the sound waves travel back into the transducer, where they’re translated into images that your technician can see in real time on a monitor. The technician may also take still pictures or videos of your blood vessels for your doctor to evaluate.
Do you have symptoms of venous (i.e., veins) or arterial disease, or do you worry about your risk of heart attack or stroke? Find out if you’d benefit from arterial ultrasound or venous ultrasound when you contact our team today by phone or message for an appointment at the office nearest you. We service Greater Heights, Pearland Market, League City, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Rosharen, Alvin, Fresno, Missouri City, Arcola, Friendswood, South Houston, Kingwood Market, Humble, New Chaney, Atasciacita, and Northeast Houston, Texas.
