Venous leg ulcer cured in 4 weeks by Whiteley Protocol

This 43-year-old man had his recurrent venous leg ulcer cured in just 4 weeks.

For the last six years, this man has had left leg varicose veins, darkening of the skin of the lower leg and venous leg ulcers. As is often the case in the UK, leg ulcer nurses “treated” him with multiple different dressings and compression bandaging and stockings.

Every time it temporarily healed with compression and dressings, it broke down within a few weeks to months.

Venous leg ulcer in 43y man recurrent after compression only – cured in 4 weeks after Stage 1 of Whiteley Protocol

He was told about The Whiteley Clinic and came for an appointment in June 2017.

As with all of our patients, he went through The Whiteley Protocol.

This starts with a consultation with a The Whiteley Clinic trained consultant who is a specialist in venous diseases. He then went on to have a venous duplex ultrasound scan by a The Whiteley Clinic trained Clinical Vascular Scientist.

This showed that he had a very large and incompetent great saphenous vein arising from his groin and refluxing blood to his ankle. This was 16 mm in diameter, which is very dilated. Furthermore, he had two incompetent perforators.

Incompetent perforators are often not treated by UK surgeons. However, research at The Whiteley Clinic has shown that incompetent perforators are one of the major causes for recurrent varicose veins (see: research about recurrent varicose veins – pelvic veins and perforators). As such, The Whiteley Clinic invented the TRLOP technique in 2001 to close incompetent perforators to improve results for The Whiteley Clinic treated patients.

Venous leg ulcer cured in four weeks

Following the Whiteley Protocol, this patient underwent endovenous laser ablation of the great saphenous vein using the Whiteley criteria for energy settings, TRLOP closure of perforators and phlebectomies. This is stage I of the Whiteley Protocol.

Two days later the ulcers were clearly healing. Four weeks later they had completely healed, his walking had returned to normal and his wife said his mood had improved considerably. Moreover, the patient felt better in himself.

The Leg Ulcer Charity – help increase public awareness that venous leg ulcers can usually be cured by endovenous surgery.

He will return for stage II of The Whiteley Protocol, which will be ultrasound guided foam sclerotherapy to the varicose veins underlying the skin damage. This will take more of the inflammation out of the skin. This will reduce the risk of any future venous leg ulcer and will also help the skin return back to full health.

Published research from the The Whiteley Clinic has shown that this approach permanently cures the majority of venous leg ulcers even in the long term (see: Leg ulcer research paper here).

The Whiteley Clinic supports The Leg Ulcer Charity in trying to increase public awareness that Venous Leg Ulcers can often be cured, or prevented, by Local Anaesthetic endovenous surgery.