Jodi's MRI and Sonogram Results

Three pregnancies have not been kind to my body, especially my first with 24 hours of labor and over 3 hours of pushing. I've had severe varicose veins in my right leg and pelvis for over 5 years now and have resolved to never have any more children unless I get this pain fixed. So I started the process a couple weeks ago.

I first had a sonogram that showed that the blood flow in these veins in my leg is actually going the opposite direction than it should. Perforating veins connect deep veins to superficial veins. Blood is supposed to return to the heart from these superficial veins, through perforating veins, into deep veins. I have a perforating vein that has incompetent valves actually allowing blood to flow from the deep veins into the superficial veins--thus the source of a lot of my pain. That superficial vein also has several bad valves along the entire length of my leg. To fix this, I'm having surgery in December. First they will use microwave energy to seal off the perforating vein. Then they will do a phlebectomy to remove the superficial vein. They'll make several small incisions the whole length of my leg, and remove the vein in small pieces.

But before those procedures can be done, they have to treat the more underlying cause in my pelvis. I had an MRI last Monday to allow the doctors to watch the blood flow and see my vein sizes in the pelvis. Of my two ovarian veins, one is "huge" (as the doctor said), and the other is also rather enlarged. In a couple weeks I will be having surgery to fix this. A radiologist will do an embolization procedure where he'll insert a catheter into the vein up into the problem area and insert a blocking agent into the vein that will prevent blood flow into the bad veins, essentially shutting them down. Blood will then be re-routed through other neighboring veins.

I have high hopes that these procedures will be successful in eliminating my pain. Who knows, maybe we'll even consider having more children.