Leg Pain Doctor Orange County

The searches that bring Orange County patients to us are mostly about one thing: a clot in a deep leg vein, and what to do about it. That is worth taking seriously and worth explaining plainly.

A deep vein thrombosis usually announces itself in one leg, not both. Swelling that appears over a day or two. A calf that aches or feels tight. Skin that is warm, red or discolored over the sore area. It can follow a long flight, a hospital stay, surgery, or a stretch of reduced movement, and sometimes it follows none of those.

It matters because a clot that breaks loose travels to the lungs. If you have sudden shortness of breath or chest pain along with a swollen leg, that is an emergency room visit, not an appointment.

For everything short of that, the work-up is straightforward. A duplex ultrasound shows whether there is a clot and where it sits. A venogram maps a vein that imaging cannot see clearly. Where a clot keeps coming back, or where blood thinners are not an option, an IVC filter can catch a clot before it reaches the lungs, and a narrowed vein can be opened and stented.

We also look for the reason. In younger patients with a left-leg clot, May-Thurner syndrome, where an artery presses the left iliac vein against the spine, is a cause worth ruling out rather than treating the clot and stopping there.