Erythropoietin and painful leg ulcers: Thrombosis or vasculitis?

Treatment of painful sickle cell leg ulcers with topical opioids.

Leg ulceration is a common and painful complication of sickle cell anemia (SS). Leg ulcers tend to be indolent and intractable and heal slowly over months or years. The pain of these ulcers may be severe, excruciating, penetrating, sharp, and stinging in nature. In most patients, oral or parenteral opioid analgesics may be needed to achieve some pain relief. We wish to report our experience wit...

Painful swollen leg – think beyond deep vein thrombosis or Baker's cyst

BACKGROUND The diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis of leg is very common in clinical practice. Not infrequently a range of pathologies are diagnosed after excluding a thrombosis, often after a period of anticoagulation. CASE PRESENTATION This is a report of three patients who presented with a painful swollen leg and were initially treated as a deep vein thrombosis or a baker's cyst, but later d...

Managing painful venous ulcers.

P atients with venous ulcers often report pain, which may be continuous or intermittent and often is associated with dressing changes. The pain may be perceived as generalized in the leg, focused in the ulcer or periwound, or both. Inflammation and edema resulting from the underlying venous disease are key factors in the patient’s pain. Appropriate wound care combined with continuous use of com...

An acutely painful leg.

Venous Leg Ulcers

Venous ulcers are usually large, shallow, painless and situated around the medial or lateral malleoli. They are associated with other signs of venous hypertension such as varicose veins, varicose eczema, haemosiderin pigmentation, atrophie blanche and venous flare. Oedema of the lower leg may be present and chronic venous stasis can lead to warty hyperplasia of the skin or thickening of the sub...