Before becoming a patient at St. Elizabeth’s Patrick T. Birrer Wound Care Center, Charles Lorentz battled open wounds that started after knee surgery, swelling and inflammation on his legs that refused to heal for years. Expertise, persistence and collaboration with a team of specialists helped Charles get the care and healing he couldn’t wait for any longer.

Charles was diagnosed with venous insufficiency, which disrupts blood flow from the legs as it travels back to the heart. The condition caused venous stasis – a large open wound on his right leg and swelling and inflammation on his left leg.

“Arteries carry your blood flow down your leg and veins carry the blood flow back up your leg,” says Interventional Radiologist Darren Hurst, MD. “I like to think of it like a highway system for the blood to flow back up your leg towards your heart. The valves are like little stoplights that control traffic and keep it flowing in the right direction. If they are not working correctly, then you get a traffic jam down in the lower portion of your leg. And that’s what we call venous stasis.”

The diagnosis was just the beginning. “It got progressively worse and worse before we started making headway. They would put medication on my wound and then they’d put dressings on it. They put wraps on from my toes up to my knee. It would start to improve. And then all of a sudden, it would just explode again,” says Charles about the early phase of treatment.

The Patrick T. Birrer Wound Care Centers offers comprehensive, personalized care to help patients with chronic and non-healing wounds find the relief they’ve been looking for.

“At the Wound Care Center, you can access multiple specialists within the same clinic. We refer you to different team members, depending on the care required to meet your unique needs,” says Roger Teller, MD, Medical Director of the Wound Care Centers.

The team has advanced expertise in a wide range of specialties, including:

“Everyone is focused on treating wounds, but we all have different areas of expertise. They’re all related to wound care, but they’re all different,” says Dr. Hurst. “We all work in concert together to heal the wound. That’s the ultimate goal.”

This collaborative approach works:

Once Charles improved, Dr. Hurst performed a procedure to close off non-functional superficial veins in his legs. Things began to move quickly after that.

“After they closed off the superficial veins, things started healing better,” says Charles. “The support staff was absolutely amazing. From the time they took the bandage off and started treatment, they’d be sure to scrub down my leg very gently. They would always make sure that the washcloths were warm and not going to be a shock when they touched my skin.”

“All of the nurses were very friendly. They all knew exactly what they were doing and when and how to do it. And they were always concerned that they weren’t hurting me. I could not ask for a better crew,” says Charles.

“We have the expertise to handle any wound and to deal with any problem that may have caused that wound initially. We have multiple subspecialties involved and can get our patients to the appropriate physician fairly quickly,” says Dr. Teller.

“Without Dr. Teller’s persistence and Dr. Hurst doing the vein procedures, I don’t know what would have happened,” says Charles. “Vein surgery was the thing that turned the page. Up until then, we were making slow progress. But after my procedure, the progress became more rapid. I was given approval to return to my regular activities within a month to six weeks,” says Charles.

“I was so thrilled that they had finally gotten things taken care of; I bought the whole department Christmas presents,” he adds with a laugh.