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What is angioplasty and stenting?
During an angioplasty, your vascular surgeon inflates a small balloon inside a narrowed blood vessel. The balloon helps to widen your blood vessel and improve blood flow. After widening the vessel with angioplasty, your vascular surgeon sometimes inserts a stent depending upon the circumstances. Stents are tiny metal mesh tubes that support your artery walls to keep your vessels wide open.`
Angioplasty and stenting are usually done through a small puncture, or sometimes a small incision, in your skin, called the access site. Your vascular surgeon inserts a long, thin tube called a catheter through this access site. Using X-ray guidance, your physician then guides the catheter through your blood vessels to the blocked area. The tip of the catheter carries the angioplasty balloon or stent.
Angioplasty most often is used to treat peripheral arterial disease (PAD), which is another name for hardening of the arteries supplying blood to your limbs or to organs in your body other than your heart. Angioplasty can also be used, in some circumstances, to treat narrowed areas in your veins, which are blood vessels that drain blood out of your limbs or organs and return the blood to your lungs and heart.
These tests include : –
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Angioplasty is often performed when you go to the hospital or emergency room for chest pain, or after a heart attack. If you are admitted to the hospital for angioplasty when it is not an emergency:
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Usually, the average hospital stay is 2 days or less. Some people may not even have to stay overnight in the hospital.
In general, people who have angioplasty are able to walk around within 6 hours after the procedure. Complete recovery takes a week or less. Keep the area where the catheter was inserted dry for 24 to 48 hours.
Most people take aspirin and another medicine called clopidogrel (Plavix) after this procedure. These medicines are blood thinners, and they keep your blood from forming clots in your arteries and stent. A blood clot can lead to a heart attack. Take the medicines exactly as your doctor tells you. Do not stop taking them before talking with your doctor first.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]