The garlic taste, also described as cigarette smoke or broccoli, is most likely due to burning/evaporation of the vein wall and blood within the vein. This evaporated material is circulated throughout the body and to the brain to give a smoke(etc.) sensation to the brain and taste buds.
The dripping sensation is the tumescent solution leaking onto the leg as the needles for instillation of it are moved up the leg to the groin.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

The tsate is probably from the minimal vaporization of some of the vein wall while lasering. These microscopic bubbles likely enter the bloodstream harmlessly, but confer some tase in some unclear mechanism.
BTW the taste can be even described as smoke, cigarettes, broccoli. barbeque.
The otheer sensation during tumescence, could just be the instillation of the cool solution, or it may have actually been the actual solution drippin on the skin surface as we use a significant volume and frequently this drips out of the punture sites as or after injection. Also harmless.
Michael D. Ingegno, MD

Published on Jul 11, 2012

The taste you experience during EVLA is the waste products of the laser being excreted through your lungs. Hence the "taste." We give our patients a little chocolate while this is happening and they do no experience it. The dripping sensation is most likely just that. Some of the tumescent dripping onto the skin between injections.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

The taste is because of the tissue burning with the laser and is
carried by blood to the taste buds. Water dripping sensation is
tumescent being filled in the tissues and also tumescent running out
of the needle stick sites.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

The garlic taste is due to the cooking of the protein in the vein wall by
the laser which makes it into the blood stream and eventually reached the
lingual or palatine taste buds, and gives that taste. We routinely give our
patients a red and white peppermint preemptively to mask this taste and thus
make the experience more enjoyable and taste better too. The water dripping
sensation may be just that, the water dripping out of the end of the needle
as it is moved from one entry site to the next from the leg to the groin.
Most of my patients describe a tightness or fullness sensation as the fluid
is injected and a few men describe it as painful, but the we are men and
have not had the experience of childbirth.

Published on Jul 11, 2012