Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with vein

Does injecting tesosterone in a vein require an immediate trip to the hospital?

double block and bleed — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:21:32 -0800

I may have accidentally injected testosterone into a vein. Do I need to go to the ER or can I wait until my endocrinologist's office is open tomorrow? I am a man in my late 30's and I have hypogonadism, my body makes little or no testosterone naturally. Every two weeks, I inject 1 ml (200 mg) of testosterone intramuscularly into my thigh.

About 15 minutes ago, I injected my medicine. When I removed the needle, about 1/4 of a ml of blood welled up from the injection site. This has never happened to me before. I'm wondering if I accidentally hit a vein and shot some or all of the medicine into it.

I've been on metafilter long enough to know that the answer to this type of question is "Go see a doctor" and I will. I just want to know if this is something that can wait until tomorrow or if I need flashing lights and sirens.

Note to my friends from not America: today is a holiday here

Valentines Day has left me partially blind

msali — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:31:53 -0800

Is there an ophthalmologist in the house? School me on central retinal vein occlusion. I woke up this morning and couldn't quite wipe the fuzzies out of my left eye. Before too long, I realized that those fuzzies were in my eye, not on it. Concerned, I scheduled an exam with my local optometrist who tentatively diagnosed me with central retinal vein occlusion.
Pretty common eye disorder, so it seems, if you are over the age of fifty. Being a 35 year old woman of sound mind (hah!) and body, I guess it is fairly uncommon. This optometrist referred me to a retinal specialist, and cautioned me to take an aspirin and not do much until my appointment tomorrow morning. My understanding is that there is no treatment for "CRVO", rather it is more important to determine the cause. My own research is freaking me out, so I thought I would pose it to my internet friends. What know ye of this illness in the young?

Clot Be Gone

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:38:54 -0800

I've been diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) -- a blood clot -- and I have questions about current best practices for treatment... Doppler ultrasound has shown a clot that begins in my calf and continues behind my knee and half way up my thigh. I've mostly gotten over the freaking-out part, and am focused on optimizing my chance for complete recovery. I'm 41, and have lots of living still to do.

I'm currently undergoing "the usual" treatment... twice-daily injections of heparin and increasing doses of warfarin with the target of getting my blood's INR to the range of 2.0 to 2.5. I'm nearly there, and the heparin will end soon as I reach the INR, and warfarin will continue for a minimum of 6 months. Since the actual cause of the blood clot itself is an unknown, we're also doing various screening panels to see if there may be other disease factors that may have resulted in DVT.

I'm reading various medical reports of a relatively new treatment called "rapid lysis" which uses a spray of clot-dissolving stuff and a vacuum nozzle -- both delivered via catheter -- to quickly eliminate or reduce the clot, resulting in fairly immediate relief from pain, and more important, from risk of pulmonary embolism and long-term effects of PST (post-thrombotic syndrome) which can result in damaged valves in veins, scarring and the like. Is this more widely in use than my doctor seems to believe?

Finally, I find it curious -- and a bit maddening -- that on completion of the current course of treatment my doctor doesn't plan a follow-up scan (ultrasound or otherwise) to see that the clot has been suitably reduced, subsumed, etc. but instead intends to trust that the treatment has done as intended. Me, I'm a believer in "trust, but verify".

I'm asking all the same questions of my doctor (I'm a fairly assertive patient, I guess) and hope to augment my understanding with that of the hive mind.

Thanks!

Knock, Knock Thelma... where'd ya get those sexy support hose?

aristan — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:58:51 -0800

I'm a reasonably active 28 year old male who has long suffered from a couple of disorders normally seen in the elderly: venous insufficiency and leg ulcers. Now the nurse practitioner I see has suggested I find a surgeon in Charlotte, NC as the only vein surgeon in Albemarle doesn't take my insurance. I'll have to find and evaluate a vein surgeon on my own... how do I go about doing that? Basically the valves in my leg don't pump the blood back to the heart and it sits and pools in my foot and ankle. This results in a severely swollen leg, a painful time walking, and a very irritable aristan. This has lead to a leg ulcer that at one point was the size of my fist. Now, thanks to the nurses and compression therapy (Unna Boots & Thelma Harper-like Stockings), It's currently smaller than the tip of my little finger and my leg is now three inches smaller around.

The problem is that this is treating the symptoms of the problem and not the actual problem itself. Constant compression therapy and the whole "keep your legs elevated at all times" are fine if you're 88... but when you're a 28 year old who works full time, is a full time student, and loves to jog & play DDR... it is impractical.

I've lived with these problems for over 10 years now and have had one surgery to apply skin grafts that caused me to spend 2 weeks in the hospital after I suffered DVT and a blood clot lodged in my lung. (No one can figure out why my previous doctor and the surgeon skipped over any type of compression therapy at the time.)

Needless to say, I'm very scared to have another surgery and more worried about selecting a surgeon on my own. Most vein surgeons I have found in the Charlotte, NC area seem to be plastic surgeons, willing to strip my varicose veins and shoot me full of botox... I need someone to fix the hole in my leg!