Vascular Procedures

Blood thinners alone, do not remove the clot but allow time to the body to dissolve the clot. Unfortunately, this does not occur always and the vein may remain blocked forever. Thrombolytics ("clot busters") can dissolve a clot quickly, over a period of a few hours to a couple of days. ...

As clot does not always dissolve, over time it may turn to a scar and the vein will remain blocked not allowing the blood to flow easily back to the heart (chronic DVT). As described earlier, the blood pools in the leg and patients experience leg swelling, pain and often brownish discoloration of the lower leg skin. ...