In some diseases, arteries become inflamed. The inflammation can result in narrowing of the opening (bore or lumen) of the vessels. The medical term for inflammation of the artery is arteritis. If the inflammation persists, the vessel may become permanently scarred and narrow. There are many different types of arteritis. Although each type has different symptoms and can affect different arteries, the primary goal of treatment is to reduce the inflammation and prevent scarring of the arteries.Typically, arteritis is part of a generalized illness with disease in other organs.Examples of arteritis are the following:Takayasu’s diseaseTemporal arteritisBuerger’s diseasePolyarteritis nodosaTakayasu’s Disease. This is also called “pulseless disease,” because some pulses usually present are absent. Takayasu’s disease is rare and occurs mostly in women younger than 40 years. It occurs in women nine times more often than in men. It is an inflammatory process that most commonly produces marked thickening of the aorta and its main branches, eventually blocking the major branches of the arteries. The blockage reduces the pulse downstream, for example, at the wrist if the artery to the arm is involved.*200\252\8*

Although intermittent claudication does not affect your life expectancy, it may affect your life-style. Treatment options include a walking program, medication, and correction of the arterial obstruction by surgery or angioplasty.If it hurts to walk, why might your doctor recommend a regular walking program? The answer is that regular walking for periods of 30 minutes (stopping to rest as necessary) 5 days a week may increase your ability to walk, climb stairs, or complete other physical tasks of everyday living. Regular walking promotes the development of collateral vessels and promotes blood flow to the affected muscles. This may result in an actual improvement in blood flow and  may slow progression of the disease.Medications that decrease blood viscosity, in a sense making it easier for the blood to flow through narrowed vessels, may improve your comfort while walking.Surgery or angioplasty (dilating the narrowed site of an artery with a balloon catheter) is often elective (optional); it depends on your needier desire to walk farther. If you have a nonhealing skin ulcer or pain at rest due to severe obstruction of arterial blood flow, then improving blood flow by angioplasty or surgery is recommended to relieve symptoms and lessen the risk of amputation.*194\252\8*

1Liz contacted me after reading some of my research on the Internet. Her story is heartbreaking. It is a personal account of the horrors of exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals in utero. In her son’s case, it was the use of a type of synthetic progestin. Although, this book is exploring ways to protect our daughters, it is important to realize that all children, males and females are at grave risk. As a tribute to tremendous courage of Liz and her son Charlie and the devotion of their family, I have included story in honor of Charlie.After a miscarriage, Liz was determined to follow her doctor’s guidance to ensure that this pregnancy would be a healthy one. After a series of tests, the doctor reported that she was low in progesterone, which probably accounted for the previous miscarriage. Wanting desperately to have this baby and, totally trusting her doctor, she agreed to weekly intramuscular injections with a progesterone called 17-hydoxy-progesterone caproate during her entire first trimester. When she asked if there were any side-effects, the reply was “Absolutely none. This is the natural progesterone hormone that your body creates.”When her baby son, Charlie, was presented to her after her Caesarian birth, she learned the terrible truth. Charlie was born with a rare birth defect called bladder exstrophy. In bladder exstrophy, the abdominal wall, having never fused together, is opened and the bladder is presented on the outside of the body as a small red mass. Bladder exstrophy occurs during the first trimester when, during the development of the embryo, something goes wrong and results in the failure of the formation of the bladder and lower part of the abdominal wall. The penis is undersized and malformed. The urethra does not form completely and the opening of the penis is on the top rather than the end, which is a condition, called epispadias. Bladder Exstrophy is one of the worse forms f the epispadias defect.*36/165/1*