Many people think that varicose veins are a cosmetic problem. Spider or bulging veins make your legs look unsightly, but they also warn of more serious health problems. Spotting signs of varicose veins in time, carrying out treatment and preventing recurrences is the main task for those who want to maintain their health and maintain the beauty of their legs as long as possible.
What are varicose veins?
In answer to this question, many will say that the main symptom of varicose veins is the ugly, bulging veins. This is due to the fact that the wall of the vein expands, stretches and the vessel loses its 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. In this case, the muscles of the legs play the role of a kind of pump: by contraction, they "lift" the blood through the vein to the heart. But if during the day you mostly sit and move a little, then the muscles contract weakly and the mechanism that helps the blood toclimbed through the vein, fails. The blood in the vessel stagnates, which creates a prerequisite for the development of varicose veins.
The second important mechanism that ensures normal blood flow through the veins of the legs is the presence of valves in the walls of the veins. Normally, they close and do not allow blood to flow from top to bottom. If the valves weaken, reflux occurs - a reverse flow of blood. As a result, it stagnates and stretches the vessel. Losing tone, the venous wall expands and the vessel can no longer perform its function at 100%. This condition is called varicose veins.
In this way, varicose veins are a consequence of the weakening of the venous valves, which begin to allow blood to flow in the opposite direction, leading to its stagnation. Varicose veins most often affect the superficial veins of the legs. Affected veins are clearly visible under the skin and appear knotty and tortuous.
What factors influence the formation of varicose veins
Risk factors affecting the development of varicose veins can be divided into several groups:
- Long-term load on the vascular wall - this can be a monotonous load (forced sitting or standing during the day), as well as large loads associated with lifting weights (for example, in athletes).
- Hormonal imbalance that affects the condition of the venous valves. That is why varicose veins often accompany pregnancy, and teenagers and young people who are undergoing active hormonal changes are also at risk. Varicose veins also threaten women taking hormonal contraceptives.
- Heredity. The vascular wall includes the 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 venous wall. This determines the congenital predisposition to varicose veins.
Pay attention to the following points: the presence of varicose veins in close relatives, the 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 severe complications as:
- rupture of a dilated vein followed by massive bleeding;
- phlebitis - inflammation of the vessel wall;
- thrombophlebitis - inflammatory process of the vessel wall with the formation of a blood clot (thrombus) on its inner surface;
- thrombosis - blockage of the lumen of a vein with a blood clot, which disrupts blood flow;
- thromboembolism - a condition in which a blood clot breaks away from the site of its formation and is transported with 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 caused by impaired 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 find out if it's 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 leg cramps at night?
- How much time during the day do you spend in the same position - sitting or standing?
- Have your relatives suffered from varicose veins?
- Are spider veins and tortuous red capillaries appearing on your legs?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, we advise you to see a doctor. In a specialized medical center for the treatment of varicose veins, you can undergo ultrasound diagnostics (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 diagnoses varicose veins, he chooses treatment tactics, taking into account the stage of the disease and the severity of clinical symptoms. Therapeutic measures can combine conservative, medicinal and surgical techniques.
As part of conservative therapy, the following is prescribed:
- dietary nutrition to improve the rheological properties of blood, strengthen the vascular wall, prevent edema, normalize digestive processes, reduce body weight (if necessary);
- wearing compression clothing of a certain compression class (socks, stockings or pantyhose).
Also, as part of a comprehensive treatment, the doctor may recommend external means 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) - improves the tone of the walls of blood vessels, as a result of which dilated veins return to their original state;
- heparin - reducing blood viscosity, reducing the risk of blood clots, increasing blood flow;
- anti-inflammatory - help 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 treating varicose veins is non-surgical methods. They allow stopping the progression of the pathological process, blocking the blood flow in the damaged veins, eliminating the unpleasant symptoms of the disease, as well as restoring the aesthetics of the legs without scars and long-term rehabilitation.
The modern phlebology center uses all modern methods of treatment:
- Sclerotherapy. A modern procedure to remove varicose veins by injecting a special substance - a sclerosant. With the help of such a drug, the dilated vessel is "glued" and then disconnected from the general blood flow, and the blood begins to circulate through healthy veins.
- Laser and radio frequency removal of veins. Both methods are similar, they are based on thermal damage to the venous wall, as a result of which it is "sealed", turns into a scar and then dissolves. The procedures are a full alternative to classic operations and are performed under ultrasound control. This makes it possible to act only on pathological lesions without damaging healthy tissue.
- In cases where surgical intervention is necessary, gentle, minimally invasive operations are performed in the clinic: phlebectomy, miniphlebectomy, stripping, crossectomy. They are applicable almost always, even in difficult cases.
Quite often, a combined approach is used in the treatment of varicose veins. For example, large varicose veins are shut off from the blood stream using radiofrequency and laser treatment, and smaller superficial vessels with tributaries are shut off with sclerotherapy. In this case, conservative therapy is carried out at the same time.