East Tennessee Vein Clinic

By Matt Hollingsworth

THERE ARE SEVERAL TYPES OF VEIN DISEASE WITH SYMPTOMS RANGING FROM COSMETIC TO PAINFUL OR EVEN DANGEROUS.

VARICOSE VEIN DISEASE

You likely know what varicose veins look like— swollen, twisted veins, usually in the legs. Often painful. So, what causes this disease?

Your veins have small valves that let blood flow in one direction but not the other. Without these, your body would have trouble pumping blood upward. Varicose Vein Disease is where these valves become weak in some veins which allows the blood to flow backwards and eventually pool.

Now, your body has a lot of veins, so you don’t have to worry about not getting enough blood back to your heart. Even if some aren’t working, there are many others that will. However, while you’re not going to run out of blood, Varicose Vein Disease can cause soreness, itching, swelling, and other symptoms. It’s even possible for the disease—if untreated—to cause blood clots or heavy bleeding.

Often, there are more diseased veins farther under the surface of your skin. You can’t see these, but they can continue causing pain if untreated. Medical professionals use ultrasound to map out these invisible veins.

VENOUS LEG ULCERS

This is the worst-case scenario for vein disease. The disease can result in painful ulcers which can cause bleeding or even clots. Even if the ulcer heals on its own, unless you get treatment, it has a 50% chance of returning over the next several years.

SPIDER VEINS & RETICULAR VEINS

Varicose veins, spider veins, and reticular veins are extremely similar. They each refer to the valves in your veins weakening, but “varicose veins” are large veins, while “spider veins” are small ones and “reticular veins” are medium-sized.

HAND & FACIAL VEINS

As people grow older, their veins often grow more pronounced. While this won’t cause any health problems, many people dislike how these veins look. Clinics like East Tennessee Vein Clinic work to improve their appearance.

Michelle Gilliam has treated varicose veins as a nurse for 20 years, and she works for East Tennessee Vein Clinic. She emphasized how much more affordable ETVC is than other vein treatments. An hour-long session with them costs less than a thirty-minute treatment with their competitors.

Many times, other clinics only fix the more obvious surface veins, but they don’t treat the less visible feeder veins that cause the others to develop. Because of this, patients will often develop varicose veins again. East Tennessee Vein Clinic, however, will treat both surface and feeder veins, getting to the root of the problem to fix it permanently.

ETVC provides comprehensive care, helping you with all aspects of vein disease. Many other clinics use hypertonic saline which is painful yet not very effective, but ETVC has the training to use less painful yet more powerful medications like sodium tetra sulfate and polidocanol.

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH VEIN DISEASE, CONSIDER REACHING OUT TO EAST TENNESSEE VEIN CLINIC AT (865) 686-0507. The owner, Dr. Brittany Cook, is a diplomate of the American Board of Venous and Lymphatic Medicine and a member of the American Venous and Lymphatic Society.

Ron Lowery’s Magic Carpet

By Matt Hollingsworth

Why do superheroes fly?

Perhaps one reason is wish fulfilment—who wouldn’t want to be able to fly, after all? We may not be able to soar through the air like Superman, but we’ve designed experiences that come close. Yet, while staring out the window of a large passenger plane can offer pretty (though restricted) views, it doesn’t really feel like flying, does it?

Photographer Ron Lowery has spent a lot of time in planes, but not the large passenger ones. Instead, he and his son built a unique twin engine experimental airplane from a kit. It has no roof and barely has enough space for Ron to sit.

As he described, “If you take a typical plane that has an enclosed cockpit, you don’t see part of the environment, but with [my plane], there’s nothing around you… It’s like a magic carpet ride.” This sounds much more like the kind of flying we dream of— nothing but us and the clouds.

Ron has spent countless hours in the sky, and from his perch, he has taken breathtaking photographs. He became interested in photography when he was in high school. His uncle travelled to other countries, taking lots of pictures, which Ron would always look forward to seeing. This sparked his interest in photography. Ron was a professional photographer for many years. Some of his images have earned totals of over $180,000, and one was featured in The Wall Street Journal. He’s also done underwater photography in eight countries.

Possibly his most breathtaking works, however, are the aerial photographs taken from his homebuilt plane, Cloud Chaser, which he has flown in 37 states.

In 2003, he even retraced the famous journey of Lewis and Clark, flying Cloud Chaser over 14,000 miles across America with writer Mary Walker. He described this journey as a kaleidoscope of cities, rivers, farmland, prairies, and badlands. They created a book about this adventure called Chasing Lewis & Clark Across America, which was designed by Ron’s wife Sue.

When Ron goes out in his plane, he won’t have a particular image in mind that he wants to photograph. He just looks for scenes that will make good compositions. “You can’t predetermine a shot,” he said.

He lives in Chattanooga and has taken many pictures of East Tennessee. He especially enjoys photographing the Little Tennessee River as well as Tennessee’s farmland. He created a book of local photography called Tennessee River: Sparkling Gem of the South.

https://www.ronlowery.com

Ron’s plane was originally designed for National Geographic to take pictures of the African Congo. It took Ron and his son three years to build from the kit. This was so long that silverfish ate the ink off the labels of some pieces, so he would have to go to the factory to find out which part was which and where everything went—like the world’s worst IKEA product.

In 30 years, he’s never crashed, largely because he avoids risks like flying in bad weather.

Our world is beautiful, and Ron Lowery has seen it in a way few have from his homemade “magic carpet.”