Many people consider varicose veins to be a cosmetic problem. Spider veins or protruding veins make your legs look unsightly, but they also warn of more serious health problems. Timely recognition of signs of varicose veins, carrying out treatment and preventing recurrence is the main task of those who want to maintain the health and beauty of their legs for as long as possible.
What are varicose veins?
Answering this question, many people will think that the main sign of varicose veins is bulging, unsightly veins. This occurs because the vein walls dilate, stretch, and the vessels lose tone. Indeed, varicose veins are the main manifestation of varicose veins, but why does this happen?
Blood flows in the veins from bottom to top. In this case, the muscles of the legs act as a kind of pump: by contracting, they "lift" blood through the veins to the heart. But if during the day you mainly sit and do little exercise, your muscles contract poorly and the mechanism that helps blood circulate through your veins is weakened. Stagnation of blood in the vessels creates conditions for varicose veins to develop.
The second important mechanism that ensures normal blood flow through the veins of the legs is the presence of valves on the walls of the veins. Normally, they close and prevent blood from flowing from top to bottom. If the valves weaken, reflux occurs - blood flows backward. As a result, it stagnates and strains the vessel. With loss of tone, the vein wall dilates and the vessel can no longer function 100%. This condition is called varicose veins.
So, varicose veins are a consequence of weakened venous valves, which begin to allow blood to flow in the opposite direction, leading to stagnation. Varicose veins often affect the superficial veins in the legs. The affected veins are clearly visible under the skin and have a serpentine, tortuous appearance.
What factors affect the formation of varicose veins?
Risk factors that influence the development of varicose veins can be divided into several groups:
- Long-term load on the vascular walls - this can be monotonous loads (forced to sit or stand during the day), as well as high loads associated with lifting weights (for example, for athletes).
- Hormonal imbalance affects the condition of the venous valves. That is why varicose veins often occur during pregnancy, adolescents and young adults who are actively undergoing hormonal changes are also at risk. Varicose veins also threaten women taking hormonal contraceptives.
- Hereditary. The vessel wall consists of so-called structural proteins - collagen and elastic. Their ratio ensures the elasticity of the veins. A person may have a congenital disorder in the ratio of these proteins, leading to weakening of the vein walls. This determines the innate tendency to varicose veins.
Pay attention to the following points: the presence of varicose veins in relatives, the presence or absence of hormonal fluctuations (taking birth control pills and other hormonal drugs, pregnancy, breastfeeding), adequate physical activity level during the day.
Why are varicose veins dangerous?
In the absence of timely diagnosis and correct treatment, varicose veins in the later stages can cause serious complications such as:
- rupture of varicose veins, followed by massive bleeding;
- phlebitis - inflammation of the vessel walls;
- thrombophlebitis - an inflammatory process of the vessel wall with the formation of blood clots (thrombosis) on its inner surface;
- thrombosis - blocking the vein lumen with a blood clot, impairing blood flow;
- Thromboembolism - a condition in which a blood clot breaks away from the site of formation and is transported with circulating blood to other structures of the body, blocking smaller vessels and causing ischemia;
- Nutritional ulcers are long-term non-healing wounds on the skin of the legs, due to impaired blood circulation and tissue nutrition.
Many complications are difficult to treat, significantly reduce a person's quality of life and can lead to irreparable consequences.
Varicose veins: what to look for
Therefore, varicose veins are one of the most common vascular diseases. Many of us, especially office workers, are at risk of getting sick. To understand whether it's time for you to see a phlebologist, answer a few questions:
- Do your feet swell 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?
- Does your loved one have varicose veins?
- Spider veins and crooked red capillaries appearing on your legs?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, we recommend you see your doctor. At a medical center specializing in the treatment of varicose veins, you can have a diagnostic ultrasound (takes about 20 minutes), which will identify varicose veins, if present, or allow you to assess your risk. its development risk. The phlebologist will give recommendations on 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. Treatments may combine conservative techniques, medications, and surgery.
As part of conservative therapy, the following are prescribed:
- dietary nutrition to improve the rheological properties of blood, strengthen vessel walls, prevent edema, normalize digestive processes, reduce body weight (if necessary);
- wearing compression garments of a certain compression type (stockings, socks, or tights).
In addition, as part of a comprehensive treatment, the doctor may recommend external treatments to eliminate 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 blood vessel walls, thanks to which dilated veins return to their original state;
- heparin - reduces blood viscosity, reduces the risk of blood clotting, increases blood flow;
- anti-inflammatory - helps eliminate inflammation and pain.
The basis of drug treatment is phlebotropic drugs. Such substances improve the flow of lymphatic fluid, blood microcirculation, reduce the permeability of vessel walls and increase their tone.
The gold standard for treating varicose veins is non-surgical methods. They are able to stop the progression of the pathological process, stop blood flow in damaged veins, eliminate unpleasant symptoms of the disease, and at the same time restore aesthetics to the legs without leaving behind. scarring and long-term rehabilitation.
Modern phlebology center uses all modern methods of treatment:
- Sclerotherapy. A modern procedure for eliminating varicose veins by injecting them with a special substance - sclerosant. With the help of this drug, the dilated vessels "stick together" and are then disconnected from the general blood flow, and blood begins to circulate through healthy veins.
- Laser and radiofrequency vein removal. Both methods are the same; they are all based on thermal damage to the vein wall, so that it "seals", turns into a scar and then heals. These procedures are complete alternatives to classical operations and are performed under ultrasound guidance. This allows it to only act on pathological lesions without damaging healthy tissue.
- In case surgery is needed, the clinic performs gentle, minimally invasive operations: vein cutting, small vein cutting, stripping, and transection. They are almost always applicable, even in difficult cases.
Quite often, a combined method is used in the treatment of varicose veins. For example, large varicose veins are disconnected from the bloodstream using radiofrequency and laser treatment, and smaller superficial vessels with branches are disconnected from the bloodstream through sclerotherapy. In this case, conservative therapy is performed simultaneously.