Wife getting an angioplasty tomorrow....

[Rogue]

My wife loses feeling in her entire right leg a couple times a day. She says that it feels like her leg goes to sleep, like when you sit or lay wrong and your foot tingles. It radiates up her leg from her feet up to just over her knee. Her foot also gets ice cold as well when this happens. I've thought for a while that she has some type of circulation issue.

Anyway, the doctor on Tuesday recommended an angioplasty to put radioactive dye in her leg so they can check the bloodflow and circulation in her lower leg. Anyone had experience with an angioplasty in the leg before? How much pain will she be in afterward. I know it's a fairly small entry wound (large guage catheter I believe), but don't know much beyond that.

 

[Pliablemoose]

She's having a angiogram, it's a diagnostic test.

How old is she?

Angioplasty typically refers to an interventional cardiac (heart) procedure:

angioplasty is a less-invasive technique that physicians used to unblock coronary arteries that have been clogged due to plaque build-up. This condition is known as atherosclerosis and may cause a heart attack.

During a balloon angioplasty, a physician guides a long, thin tube called a catheter through a patient's arteries, usually entering through the groin, and into the heart. The catheter is tipped with an inflatable balloon. Once the balloon reaches the site of obstruction, it is rapidly inflated, crushing the plaque against the arterial wall and restoring blood flow through the vessel. To help keep the vessel open, the physician might also permanently implant a tiny mesh tube called stent.

 

[amdhunter]

Sounds somewhat routine, I doubt there will be long term trauma.

 

[Proletariat]

Its become a very common surgery these days bro 🙂

Hope she recovers fast.

 

[Rogue]

Yeah, sorry, Pliablemoose is correct, it's an angiogram. She's worried about it. She's 26 and this problem started back in April or so. I keep telling her it will be alright, but I'm hoping to be able to give her facts about it before tomorrow morning. Will they just use local on her thigh to insert the catheter? Will her thight bruise pretty good? The doc didn't explain too much on Tuesday because he had to run to take care of another patient, but said they'd explain it all tomorrow before hand. I'm just curious and want to know now. Coming from me, it will set her mind at ease a little more than the doc telling her tomorrow just before it happens.

Oh, and Proletariat, check the "Would you leave your wife....rape...." thread. I replied to your smart a$$ed remark. Don't take my tone personally, I absolutely hate even the insinuation that I'm lying and I tend to overreact. Thanks for your concern and for replying to this thread.