07 21 25 Dr. Blaze Cook Breaks Down Trump's Chronic Venous Insufficiency Diagnosis

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
President Truck was recently diagnosed with what is being called
chronic venous insufficiency. It's where sometimes the legs and extremities
can be damaged and can't manage to return blood as
well as it should to the heart. Patients can't experience swelling,
pain and skin discoloration and other conditions. Joining us now
in the ka Comma Spirit Health Hotline is doctor Blaize Cook,
interventional radiologist at our partners at Colorado Advanced Endovascular Doctor.

(00:25):
Good morning, appreciating coming on Colorado's warning news with us.
If you would explain chronic venus or is it venus
in sufficiency?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Absolutely, I'd be happy to Chronic venus in efficiency is
a wide spectro of signs and symptoms generally associate with
too much venous blood pressure in the legs. It's most
commonly caused by leaky vein valves and less commonly caused
by a vein obstruction or some combination thereof.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Does this impact older people more so than younger people?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
It does. Risk factors include aging and does we age
in general. The fiber elastin, or the structure of the
veins of relaxes and as a relaxes the veins dilate,
the valves begin to separate, and they become more leaky.
That increased pressure then, of course affects the valve below it,
which increases the pressure and leaking in that valve, which
results in common symptoms such as swelling, dilated beans the

(01:15):
legs that you can see from AFAR, or even skin
changes and wounds.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
This condition, at least the president doesn't seem to be
or at least they're saying not as serious. But can
CVII become more serious and doesn't lead to other more
serious conditions?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
It can, and I agree with the assessment I think
was stated in the press release that this is benign
and common, and for most people it is absolutely that
benign and common. For some it can cause greater disability.
The swelling in the legs because it can enabit walking
or activities of daily living, and the progression of skin thickening,
and then to wounds because you can get a wound
that doesn't heal on its own, but under appropriate medical

(01:52):
carrows are very avoidable.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
How do you treat this condition?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Great questions? So there are multiple ways of treating it.
The easiest is just avoid sitting and standing for long
periods of time elevate the legs, just keeping the pressure decreased,
and then walking just keeping the blood flow moving through
the valves and pushing in the deeper system. On the
medical spectrum, there's compression garments. Stocking is the most common.

(02:16):
Is in the President's case, we do a trial of
stockings to see if that alleviates the symptoms. And if
that doesn't work or patients can't tolerate the stockings, then
we go in and we start talking about closing the
admirable veins, either using heat or chemicals or sometimes in circumstances,
making very small incisions or removing them.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I would imagine because of the president's roll doing a
lot of travel international, that that makes doing the things
you suggest, walking in some of those things, moving around
a little more difficult. What do you think his health
people are telling that exactly that maybe compression stocks, do
a little more walking, get a little more exercise.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, that's correct, getting up, moving around, long plating travels.
It's associated with a different entity deep venus thrombosis, which
does increase your risk a little bit with the venus insufficiency,
but by and large, is this remaining active his activities
such as golf are the perfect thing to do, and
I encourage my patients to walk thirty minutes a day,
ideally in an uninterrupted session.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
They did rule out deep veins from boasts, of which
I know could be a serious condition. Could this get
worse if it's left untreated.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
If it's le's untreated, the worst thing that can happen
here is wounds, and the wounds can be severe. If
it's left to completely untreated, we can get into real
trouble with that. The entire spectrum is treatable all the
way through, and even patients of wounds can be helped
by treatment by closing the abnormal veins on the deep
bing side. That's a different story. The wrist that we
spoke about earlier, that if somebody has acute leg swelling

(03:39):
is a medical emergency and needs treated immediately.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
And doctrine wrapping up with you. How often do you
see this condition? How common is it?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
This common? This is very common. Depending on how it's defined,
the majority of Americans can expect to experience some form
of being its insufficient that see in their lives. For example,
spider beans are on the spectrum. They are very common.
Getting to swell like the President has, I would say
it's still common, maybe twenty twenty five percent of the
population can expect to have it if you could live
long enough. So I would say that it's a very

(04:09):
very common entity that's just undertreated and underdiagnosed.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Interventional radiologist at Colorado Advanced Endovascular Partner here of KOAS
is doctor Blaize Cook.