How do you explain your Avm to people?

I’m not too sure but this topic might’ve came up before. Anyway there are new people here and I’d like to know how to explain an Avm to family, friends, or anyone.

This is my explanation… How to explain someone new and unknown person about your condition in simple words? - #2 by DickD

(click on the link)

I tell people that you have arteries from the heart that decrease in size to a capillary bed and then get bigger to veins to take the blood back, well I mostly have those except my AVM which is an abnormal snarl of vessels in between. The usual question is like an aneurysm? I used to try to explain more but now usually say something like that! When I have really interested people I show them a pic of normal, then a pic of an AVM. I used to get into more detail but found most are satisfied with knowing I had a weird snarl of vessels. I found the simpler the better. We all know its way more complicated than that, but it gets the basic point across for me. Take Care, John.

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I just call it a congenital disease - which it appears to have been the case for me according to my neurosurgeons

I tell people it’s like a knot of tangled cables. A purposeful knot ties and secures objects together for a purpose. An AVM is weak and likely you don’t know where so that when there is stress on the “knot” likely it will give way and often to a crippling outcome.

I always told people my dads was a “spaghetti ball mass of veins that grew wrong”

I tell people that normally there are capillaries between arteries and veins to slow down the pressure and to get blood to the brain. But in the case of an AVM, there are none. So you have all of this pressure going from the arteries straight into the weaker veins. That can cause serious consequences.

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Thank you everyone for your replies. These all sound like pretty good ways to explain an Avm.

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