Vein & Esthetic Centre's Purpose Makes Patients' Lives Better

Tonya Critchlow didn't wear shorts. She didn't wear dresses. She was embarrassed of her spider veins and didn't know if a doctor would be able to help her.

"I just hadn't found treatment," she says. "I just thought they were atrocious, that there was no help for these spider veins on the back of my legs."

That was before she had a sclerotherapy at the Vein and Esthetic Centre in Cape Girardeau in 2003. Now, she is the office manager and nurse at the clinic, and it is her legs that are featured on the billboards for the center. She wants to help other patients to be able to go for hikes or wear shorts again confidently and without pain.

So does Dr. J Thomas Critchlow, MD, who founded the center in 1998 with the goal of making patients' lives better.

Critchlow has been fascinated by veins since studying with Dr. Larry Tretbar, one of the founders of sclerotherapy in the U.S., in the early 1980s. Critchlow was one of the first board-certified phlebologists in the state of Missouri. Practicing vein care since 1974 when he performed his first venous operation, he is passionate about the changes he has seen in vein care, which is what drew him to the field.

Critchlow draws a diagram of the veins in the leg. He explains the vein treatment process to each patient by utilizing his illustration skills.

"The field keeps changing, it keeps evolving, it keeps coming out with new technologies," he says. "This started with vein stripping, went to radiofrequency, then to lasers and recently to glue, and it just keeps evolving. It's exciting. So, I love treating veins."

Critchlow says treating patients with symptomatic varicose veins used to entail a vein-stripping operation in which a wire was run through the vein in the groin which was then literally ripped out through an incision in the ankle. This process involved a week-long recovery in a hospital. Now, however, the process is much less invasive, much less painful, is done in the office and requires no downtime or pain medication.

Critchlow offers many options to patients who have veins that are visible and/or are causing them pain. To find out if one of these procedures can help, Critchlow performs an ultrasound to see if blood is flowing through the veins in the wrong direction, which is what causes problems in the veins.

Tonya Critchlow, Dr. J. Thomas Critchlow and Fran Johnson stand at The Vein & Esthetic Centre. The center opened in Cape Girardeau in 1998.

"The reason you have veins is to bring blood back to the heart which then pumps it through the lungs to give it oxygen and then pumps it through your arteries to your tissues when it loses its pressure," Critchlow says. "To get blood back to the heart from your legs is different because it must go uphill against gravity. Your veins are able to do this because they have one-way valves that only allow your blood to go up. Sometimes, the valves in your superficial veins don't function properly, and the blood is allowed to flow back into your leg, resulting in increased pressures in your veins. This causes them to dilate and form varicose veins. These dilated veins can cuase the leg to swell, ache, itch, cause restless leg syndrome and actually develop ulcers in the skin."

When this is the case, Critchlow closes the main vein off by numbing the skin along the vein using tiny pin pricks. Then, a needle with a laser is run through the vein, which closes the vein off using heat. The patient can then go about their life normally, wearing compression stockings for a week.

A second option is VENASEAL, which is essentially a glue gun that uses cyanoacrylate to close off the vein that is causing the issues.

For veins that are not visible but are causing pain, Critchlow offers echosclerotherapy, which consists of finding the vein through an ultrasound and injecting it with a needle. This will help patients who experience aching pain in their legs, who need to put their legs up after a day of work or who have swelling in their legs during car trips. If pain keeps you from going places or doing things you want to do and you can't see the veins in your legs, this could help.

While spider veins can be symptomatic causing localized pain or restless leg syndrome, they are always considered mainly a cosmetic problem and are not covered by insurance. Symptomatic varicose veins are almost always covered by insurance. They are more likely to develop blood clots which are red and tender and may take months to resolve. These superficial clots are usually not dangerious but can spread into the deep veins which can be life-threatening.

Through these procedures and more, Critchlow enjoys helping his patients live lives that are truly better and more fulfilling.

"I have some very, very happy patients that now feel like they can do stuff that they couldn't do before," Critchlow says. "And that's kind of what we're all in this for, is to help patients."

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The Vein & Esthetic Centre

3065 William St #105, Cape Girardeau, MO 63703

__(573) 651-1882__