Many people consider varicose veins to be a cosmetic problem. Spider veins or bulging veins make your legs look unsightly, but they also warn of more serious health problems. Timely detection of signs of varicose veins, treatment and prevention of recurrence is the main task of those who want to maintain the health and beauty of their legs as long as possible.
What are varicose veins?
Answering this question, many will say that the main sign of varicose veins is unsightly, bulging veins. This happens due to the fact that the wall of the vein expands, stretches and the vessel loses tone. Indeed, varicose veins are the main manifestation of varicose veins, but why does this happen?
Blood flows through the veins from the bottom up. The role of a kind of pump in this case is played by the leg muscles: by contracting, they "raise" the blood through the vein to the heart. But if during the day you mostly sit and move little, then the muscles contract weakly, and the mechanism that helps the blood to rise through the vein fails. The blood in the vessel stagnates, which creates a prerequisite for the appearance of varicose veins.
Another important mechanism that ensures normal blood flow through the leg veins is the presence of valves in the vein walls. They usually close and prevent blood from flowing from top to bottom. If the valves weaken, reflux occurs - backflow of blood. As a result, it stagnates and stretches the vessel. Losing tone, the vein wall expands, and the vessel can no longer perform its function 100%. This condition is called varicose veins.
Thus, varicose veins are the result of the weakening of the venous valves, which begin to let blood flow in the opposite direction, which leads to its stagnation. Varicose veins most often affect the superficial veins of the legs. The affected veins are clearly visible under the skin and appear knotted and tortuous.
What factors influence the formation of varicose veins
Risk factors that affect the appearance of varicose veins can be divided into several groups:
- Long-term load on the vascular wall - it can be a monotonous load (forced sitting or standing during the day), as well as heavy loads associated with lifting weights (for example, among athletes).
- Hormonal imbalance affecting the state of the venous valves. That is why varicose veins often accompany pregnancy, and teenagers and young people who are actively undergoing hormonal changes are also at risk. Varicose veins also threaten women who take hormonal contraceptives.
- Heredity. The vascular wall includes so-called structural proteins - collagen and elastin. Their ratio ensures the elasticity of the vein. A person may have a congenital disorder in the ratio of these proteins, which leads to weakness of the vein wall. This determines the innate predisposition to varicose veins.
Pay attention to the following points: presence of varicose veins in close relatives, presence or absence of hormonal fluctuations (taking contraceptives and other hormonal drugs, pregnancy, breastfeeding), sufficient level of physical activity during the day.
Why are varicose veins dangerous?
In the absence of timely diagnosis and proper treatment, varicose veins in the later stages can cause the development of such serious complications as:
- rupture of a varicose vein followed by massive bleeding;
- phlebitis - inflammation of the wall of blood vessels;
- thrombophlebitis - inflammatory process of the vascular wall with the formation of a blood clot (thrombus) on its inner surface;
- thrombosis - blocking of the lumen of the vein with a blood clot, which hinders blood flow;
- thromboembolism - a condition in which a blood clot separates from the place of its formation and is transported with the circulating blood to other structures of the body, blocking smaller vessels and causing ischemia;
- trophic ulcers are long-term non-healing wounds on the skin of the legs, which are caused by disturbed blood circulation and tissue trophism.
Many complications are difficult to treat, significantly reduce a person's quality of life and can lead to irreversible consequences.
Varicose veins: what to look for
So, varicose veins are one of the most common vascular pathologies. Many of us, especially office workers, are at risk. To understand whether it is time to visit a phlebologist, answer a few questions:
- Are your feet swollen at the end of the day? Do you feel heaviness, pain or cramps in your legs at night?
- How much time during the day do you spend in the same position - sitting or standing?
- Did your relatives suffer from varicose veins?
- Are you getting spider veins and tortuous red capillaries on your legs?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, we advise you to see a doctor. In a specialized medical center that treats varicose veins, you can undergo ultrasound diagnostics (it takes about 20 minutes), which will identify varicose veins, if any, or allow you to assess the risks of their development. The phlebologist will give recommendations for effective prevention or treatment.
What to do if varicose veins appear
After the phlebologist has diagnosed varicose veins, he selects treatment tactics taking into account the stage of the disease and the severity of clinical symptoms. Therapeutic measures can combine conservative, medical and surgical techniques.
As part of conservative therapy, the following is prescribed:
- dietary nutrition to improve the rheological properties of the blood, strengthen the vascular wall, prevent edema, normalize the digestion process, reduce body weight (if necessary);
- wearing compression clothing of a certain compression class (stockings, stockings or tights).
Also, as part of a comprehensive treatment, the doctor may recommend external drugs to eliminate the signs of the disease. They are available in the form of ointments, gels, creams and are divided into three large groups:
- phlebotonics (venotonics) - improve the tone of blood vessel walls, due to which dilated veins return to their original state;
- heparin - reduces blood viscosity, reduces the risk of blood clots, increases blood flow;
- anti-inflammatory - helps to eliminate inflammation and pain.
The basis of drug therapy is phlebotropic drugs. Such substances improve the outflow of lymphatic fluid, blood microcirculation, reduce the permeability of vascular walls and increase their tone.
The gold standard for the treatment of varicose veins is non-surgical methods. They make it possible to stop the progression of the pathological process, block the flow of blood in damaged veins, remove the unpleasant symptoms of the disease, and also restore the aesthetics of the legs without scars and long-term rehabilitation.
The modern phlebology center uses all modern treatment methods:
- Sclerotherapy. A modern procedure for removing varicose veins by injecting a special substance - a sclerosant. With the help of such a drug, the dilated vessel becomes "blind", and then it is disconnected from the general blood flow, and the blood begins to circulate through healthy veins.
- Laser and radiofrequency vein removal. Both methods are similar, they are based on thermal damage to the vein wall, due to which it is "sealed", turns into a scar, and then retracts. The procedures are a complete alternative to classical operations and are performed under ultrasound control. This allows to act only on pathological lesionswithout damaging healthy tissue.
- In cases where an operation is necessary, mild, minimally invasive operations are performed at the clinic: phlebectomy, miniphlebectomy, stripping, crossectomy. They are applicable almost always, even in difficult cases.
Very often, a combined approach is used in the treatment of varicose veins. For example, large varicose veins are shut off from the bloodstream with radiofrequency and laser treatment, and smaller superficial vessels with tributaries are shut off with sclerotherapy. In this case, conservative therapy is carried out simultaneously.