I think the word is still out on the overall effectiveness of these procedures. That's probably why they're not widely used.

I had that procedure within a couple of days of the diagnosis of my clot (ankle to groin, multiple occlusions). It was done from the knee up, entering behind the knee. I wouldn't know what difference if any it made, as I had nothing to compare it to. This was my first and so far only clot. But after a year of dedication to compression stockings and warfarin, an ultra sound indicated all veins had opened up enough to each be "working" again.

I have been doing research on this for years. It is my understanding that it can only be done and be successful on very new clots i.e. a few hours to a few days old.

My vascular dr told me I was much too late to see him (he was a 2nd opinion), the damage was done. I saw him about a year after my last dvts.

He said the only "fix" for venous insufficiency would be the development of valves. He also mentioned stents but I declined because there is a chance of more problems. Since I will be on warfarin for life there is no good reason to do stents.

If you find out something otherwise please post about it.

I will do emt......I will know more in the coming week.....
I see the vascular surgeon next week and I am getting a thorough mapping via Doppler.

Emt,

Excerpt from Dr Hoffman and Stanford article mentioning treating old clots too and the link. .....

http://stanfordhospital.org/newsEvents/newsletters/healthnotes/DVTTreatment

What Hofmann discovered, with a CT scan of Resnanskys leg, was that, despite the blood thinners, the original clot was still there. And, it had grown to block most of the flow out of her vein. To help Resnansky, Hofmann used an innovative treatment approach designed to treat both recent and older clots, once thought untreatable, in the millions of people whose veins become blocked by blood clots. The clotting phenomenon is known as deep vein thrombosis, commonly referred to as DVT. The conditions most lethal possibility is that a clot will break lose and travel to the lung, heart or brain.

More than 15 million Americans suffer from some form of the disease. Each year sees another 600,000 cases of DVT. An estimated 100,000 die annually from complications related to the disease.

We knew we could treat chronic DVT if we had better devices.
Lawrence "Rusty" Hofmann, MD, Chief, Stanford Hospital & Clinics Division of Interventional Radiology

Emt,

One more link as FYI from Stanford......

http://www.treatdvt.com/

I had thrombolysis (which is different but similar) twice after my first severe DVT (ankle to groin). I had one catheter inserted into the top of my foot and the other run up through the vein behind my knee. Saved my life at the time, because the clots weren't dissolving on their own and were beginning to travel. However, I wouldn't have bothered doing it post-DVT. Sounds like what you have could possibly be the development of PTS. Fifteen years post-DVT (the first one, anyway) and post-thrombolysis, I still have that pain you're describing. It's just in the form of PTS now.