The Spokesman-Review from Spokane, Washington • 14

PAGE B6 MONDAY, OCT. 3, 1988 The Spokesman Review HEALTH NAMES FACES Working McKinlay in a new vein Sandpoint ieg sucker' has new treatment for varicose veins MmZBfct; yy'Mi Jill 3 Johnson Campbell Women the focus: Empire Health Services will sponsor a women's health symposium Oct. 27-28 at Cavanaugh's Inn at the Park. Experts will explore male female relationships, dual-career families, managing stress, nutritional tips and coping with change. Annie McKinlay, owner of "Generally Speaking," a communications consulting and seminar firm, will open the symposium.

Marjorie Shaevitz, author of "The Super woman Syndrome," will be speak Oct. 28, followed by Morton Shaevitz on "Sexual Static: How Men Are Confusing the Women They Love." The symposium cost is $55 before Oct. 21, and education credits are available. For more information, call 459-6636. Appointed: Jane A.

Johnson, vice president for University Advancement at Eastern Washington University, has been appointed to Empire Health Services' board of directors. Johnson is the first woman to join this 10-member board. Kudos: Ruth Bindler, associate professor of nursing education at the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education, was credited with saving a senior citizen's life Sept. 14 at the Spokane County Fair, where she was serving as a volunteer in the Red Cross first-aid booth. Bindler's efforts prevented a woman from choking to death.

BULLETIN BOARD Staff photo by ANNE C. WILLIAMS vein patient Joan Thompson. Shaevitz Elected: R. Keith Campbell, professor of clinical pharmacy at Washington State University and a consultant to Deaconess Medical Center's Diabetes Education Center, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the American Association of Diabetes Educators, of which he has been a member for nine years. Campbell was selected 1988 "Man of the Year" by the Pharmacists' Planning Service Inc.

and has chaired Washington's Diabetes Control Project Medical Advisory Committee. Starting up: Phillip S. Putnam, N.M.D., D.N., has opened a natural health practice, which includes nutripathic counseling, physiological monitoring and stress management, in the Total Health Center, 157 West Hayden Lake in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Putnam, also a certified nutrimedicist and a registered nutritional counselor, received his degrees in nutripathy and naturopathy from the American College of Nutripathy in Scottsdale, and Claytons School of Natural Health in Birmingham, Ala. He is a fellow of the American Nutritional Medical Association.

Announcements for Names Faces should be mailed to: Health Page, co City Desk, The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Chronicle, W999 Riverside, Spokane, Wash. 99201 For more information, call the El Katif Shrine, 624-2762. AIDS answers: The Washington State Bar Association offers a tree pamphlet about AIDS-related legal matters. "What You Should Know About AIDS" answers commonly asked legal questions about acquired immune deficiency syndrome, including AIDS testing, discrimination concerns, assistance programs, financial affairs, estate planning and other issues. A resources section lists additional sources of help.

To obtain a copy, send a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope to: AIDS Pamphlet, Washington State Bar Association, 500 Westin Building, 2001 Sixth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121-2599. New therapy sessions: Do you know someone who has suffered a stroke that has affected speech? Aphasia group therapy sessions are scheduled for 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Wednesday mornings beginning this week in Room 211, Holy Family Hospital. The sessions stress functional skills and are led by speech-language pathologist Becky Jensen. Sessions are limited to six participants.

There is a fee covered by some insurers but not Medicare. For more information, call 482-2209. On speech and hearing: University Programs in Communication Disorders, a cooperative program involving the communication disorders departments of Eastern Washington University and Washington State University, has opened a speech and hearing clinic on the sixth floor of the Farm Credit Banks Building, W601 First. The clinic offers a range of services related to communication disorders. Openings are available for both hearing and speech-language evaluations.

For an appointment or further information, call 456-2472. Neonatal nursing: The 10th annual Neonatal Nursing and Management Conference, with the theme "Tender Beginnings, Enriching the Future," will be Thursday and Friday at the Coeur d'Alene Resort. Sponsored by the Nurses Advisory Committee for Perinatal Education and the Inland Empire Perinatal Center, the conference is designed to provide neonatal and perinatal nurses with current, alternative information on nursing practices. Several experts will address the conference. Registration is $160; continuing education credits are available.

A reception and early registration will be Wednesday; call 624-3182. Free cancer test: Free colon-rectal cancer screening is available Thursday through Saturday at The Medicine Shoppe, W1403 Mansfield. The screening is being offered nationwide by the AMC Cancer Research Center and Medicine Shoppe pharmacies. Participants will receive a test kit and a demographic profile analysis. Call 327-1504 CYNTHIA TAGGARTSTAFF WRITER IQ Test: Anheuser-Busch and the video industry have launched a national public-service campaign designed to heighten consumer awareness on the importance of responsible drinking.

"Your Alcohol I a video quiz featuring television celebrities can be borrowed free of charge at Southgate Magic Video, S4408 Regal. Patient screening: The El Katif Shrine will sponsor a screening clinic from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for prospective patients of the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children. The screening will be in the out-patient clinic, lower level, N820 Summit Blvd.

The hospital treats orthopedic problems such as club feet, knock knees, bow legs, hip problems, curvature of the spine (scoliosis) and other diseases of the bones and joints. Also treated are bone deformities and a limited number of neurologic conditions. Treatment for children under 18 of any race or religion is free of charge. FRONT LINES The Food and Drug Administration will allow Ultramed Inc. to market a device that measures blood flow in the brain, increasing the odds of detecting clogged arteries that may lead to stroke and possibly reducing the risk of brain damage in stroke-related surgery.

The new system, called Transcranial Doppler (TCD), used in combination with an ultrasound vascular imaging device, helps physicians make a more complete examination. They can conduct scans in the office, eliminating the need to send patients to outside labs. In a recent study, TCD was shown to increase the chance of detecting stroke-causing diseased vessles by more than 20 percent. TCD identifies stroke candidates by reading and imaging blood flow rates in a group of arteries at the base of the brain, showing an irregular pattern if a blockage exists. The system may help physicians more safely determine which method to use when clearing stroke-causing deposits from the carotid arteries the two major arteries that deliver blood from the heart to the brain.

The system also can determine the arteries' capacity to sustain blood flow, a major factor in the risk of surgical brain damage. For further information, contact Ultramed, 2549 U.S. Route 1, RD1, North Brunswick, NJ 08902. Phone (201) 821-4440. Or the Food and Drug Administration, 5600 Fishers Lane, RM 13-62, Rockville, MD, 20857.

Dr. Ed Gould uses a Doppler probe on varicose BY COEUR d'ALENE Joan Thompson climbed on Dr. Ed Gould's pulpit, raised her dress and revealed her slender thighs. Gould held what looked like an electric razor on the back of a knee of the 36-year-old Coeur d'Alene woman and squeezed her calf with his free hand. "Ooh, you have a perfect system," he noted as his eyes registered the steep peak the needle on his Doppler machine traced after the squeeze.

"This lady's veins are doing great work." Veins are Gould's specialty, which makes him a phlebologist, but he calls himself a "leg sucker. "A lot of people treat varicose veins," Gould said during one of his weekly visits to Coeur d'Alene. "Few do it as a profession." During the last year, Gould, a Sand-point general surgeon, has made himself a most hated enemy of varicose veins, those red and blue strands that make inner calves look like road maps. His eradication method is as simple and painless as a remedy can be. And in most cases, his work leaves no scars on the body or on the budget.

To understand Gould's treatment, it is necessary to understand varicose veins. The telephone wire-like mesh just beneath the skin can be more than ugly. Varicose veins is a chronic disease dilation of the superficial veins that causes discomfort, leads to ulcers and, in its worst cases, can cause death, Gould said. Doctors have blamed the vein problems on obesity and multiple pregnancies, panty girdles and standing too long. No one really knows the cause of varicose veins, but the disease apparently is hereditary, Gould said.

As a general surgeon, Gould encountered several cases during his 13 years of practice. "I treated them traditionally, did vein stripping or advised them to wear warm socks, put their feet higher than their butts and see me in 25 years," he said. Then 18 months ago, Gould attended a meeting in Coeur d'Alene at which a phlebologist from Seattle gave a presentation on varicose vein by in Gould advises a simple outpatient Procedure that takes about an hour, inder a spinal anesthetic, he ties off the major veins and all the tributaries that feed into the superficial vein system, he said. The veins become fibrous and are absorbed by the body. After four weeks, Gould begins sclerotherapy to rid the legs of any remaining varicose veins, he said.

The treatments cost from $250 "for body and fender work," said Gould, to $1,500 for a worst-case scenario. That compares with several thousand dollars patients face after undergoing vein surgery in the hospital, he said. And the sclerotherapy and outpatient surgery is less traumatic for people. During the past year, Gould has administered hundreds of treatments, he said. Ninety percent of his patients are women and most of those are 32 to 45 years old, he said.

His youngest patient was 17, but he advised her to wait until after she had children for the treatments. "It's probably not dangerous. I think we could even make a case that it would be better for her to have the surgery," the doctor said. "But we phlebologists are conservative about recommending elective surgery. With such a litigious society, we don want to put our noses in a wringer." Thompson has had four injections in the area above her knees.

She had what Gould calls spider veins. For each visible vein, Thompson required a separate injection. "You just feel the sting of the shot, nothing else," she said as she climbed down from the pulpit. "And they just go away. It's wonderful.

And I feel much better in shorts." Gould calls it immediate gratification. "You stick it and watch it (the veins) vanish. People bring in their friends to watch. I've threatened to put up bleachers," he joked. "The medical community's response has been wait and see, but that's typical with new methods.

I don't obiect. I waited a year to see if I could deliver results and I could. "Nothing's perfect," Gould added. "But the majority of my patients are happy and that's what counts." treatment by injection andor outpatient surgery. Gould said he was the only one of the 150 doctors in attendance hooked the presentation of Dr.

Walter De-Groot, he said. According to DeGroot, the injection treatment had been in use in Europe and especially in Paris since before World War II. The treatment DeGroot explained started at an earlier point the disease than American treatment, had better results and controlled pain better, Gould said. The doctor from Sandpoint was sold. He spent $5,000 to fly to Paris for an intense weeklong training in sclerotherapy.

There, he and eight other American doctors were instructed by five Parisian phlebologists for 11 hours per day, Gould said. When he came home, Gould put what he learned to work on his wife, then on his patients. The traditional American treatment is to scrape out the major vein and dissect all the superficial varicose veins that are visible, he said. The treatment leaves from five to 25 scars per leg, depending on the severity of the case. Because varicose veins are chronic, patients could have to undergo the surgery more than once.

"With vein stripping, people trade varicose veins for multiple scars," Gould said. "And they come back, the varicosities. They have to have them cut out again and again." The Europeans taught Gould to determine the competency of his patients' veins first with a Doppler machine. The machine uses high frequency sound sensors to determine if valves on the veins open to allow the free flow of blood. If the veins are competent, then the varicosities can be treated with injections of sodium tetradecol, Gould said.

The procedure is called sclerotherapy. He had a set of two stairs he calls his pulpit custom built for his patients to stand on during treatment. The pulpit raises the legs to Gould's eye level. The sodium tetradecol causes the veins to spasm, harden and become fibrous. At that point, the body reabsorbs them and reroutes blood through healthy veins, the doctor said.

If the valves aren't competent,.