Q: I am a 50 years old male, weighing 82 kg, working in a government enterprise. My physical mobility is less. I am non-diabetic and non-hypertensive. My right leg is slightly swollen from foot to hip when compared to left portion. I observed this four years back when I was getting pain in right groin while standing for longer durations. When I measured the circumference of thighs at a particular point the right one was one inch more. I have contacted a physician and he termed it as filariasis in second stage and suggested me treatment of Hetrazan 100 mg three times a day for 21 days and to be repeated quarterly. I am doing this since two years. My problem is if I sit more than 30 minutes on floor it starts paining in my entire right lower limb and feel numbness in the foot. But, I don't find any other symptoms of filariasis. I don’t find any difficulty even if I walk 5 to 6 km at a stretch. I, therefore, request you to kindly advise me on my right lower limb problem for which I will be grateful to you.

A:The effective treatment for filariasis is pneumatic compression, in which the physician applies a prolonged compression, using a special machine, to the leg. Before I suggest that you should think of it, I wonder do you actually have filariasis? For most surgeons, filariasis is difficult to diagnose and treat, and you should go to a specialist. Get the specialist to rule out deep venous thrombosis. I suggest you to visit a good vascular surgeon in your city or town. Don’t keep taking Hetrazan. If you don’t have filariasis, you obviously don’t need it. Even if you do, the swelling in the leg represents burnt out disease, and there is no role for more than one course of Hetrazan. You may develop unnecessary side effects.