Comfortable & sedentary lifestyle, modern fashion, special postures adopted while performing professional duties have contributed to increased incidence of a set of diseases unheard in past. Varicose vein disease is one of them and is a direct result of a sedentary life style, adopted by modern youth today. The problem of varicose veins has become very common during these days. According to one estimate, 15 to 20 per cent of population in our country is suffering from varicose vein problems these days.
Ladies suffer from varicose vein problems four times more than their male counter-parts. There is an increased risk of development of varicose vein among young females who wear tight jeans & high- heeled sandals.
What are Varicose Veins?
Varicose veins are actually abnormal veins lying just beneath the skin of your leg & thigh. These varicose veins are prominently visible, corkscrew like, entangled in one another. It looks as if a number of earthworms or blue-colored spiders are lying under your leg skin. In these veins, the mechanism of carrying impure blood from lower limb back to heart gets deranged either due to defective valves of vein or absence of valves by birth. The function of these valves is to control blood flow in the veins.
Veins are those blood pipes, which collect impure blood from your lower limbs and carry it back to heart and then lung for purification. The job of vein is difficult, as it has to push blood upwards from leg against gravity towards heart. This function of vein is made possible by valves which open up & allow blood to flow only in one direction, but when a person stands up these valves get closed to prevent blood from going down towards feet. In other words, these valves of veins constantly maintain a unidirectional flow of blood that is always towards the heart. When these valves are absent or become defective, these varicose veins fail to control blood flow in one-way direction & in the process they become dilated & swollen under the skin due to high backpressure and this results into pooling of impure blood into the feet.
Features of Varicose Veins
Varicose veins cause permanent swelling & heaviness in feet. Skin of leg develops black or blue colored patches. In thigh & leg, under the skin develop snake or earthworm like blue colored veins, resulting into distortion of shape of leg & foot.
A person suffering from varicose vein, develop pain in foot & leg while walking or on prolonged standing. If varicose veins are not treated effectively, leg skin will develop eczema & an ulcer that never heals. These ulcers caused by varicose veins are called varicose ulcers. Sometimes there occurs massive bleeding from varicose ulcer. Ultimately, person is forced to lead a disabled life.
What causes Varicose Veins?
In forty per cent of patients, varicose vein are due to hereditary & run into families and generations. The other important causative factors are obesity, lack of exercises, abnormal pressure on veins during pregnancy, abnormal life style, prolonged standing and prolonged sitting with legs down.
Due to advanced age, overweight and lack of exercises, veins of legs become very weak and therefore develop into varicose veins. Due to obesity, a lot of fat gets deposited in the leg. This weakens the support system of veins that result into veins becoming dilated & tortuous.
In today’s modern age, a lot of occupations & professions have sprung up where a person is required to either constantly standup for a long time or made to sit with legs hanging down for a considerable time. Computer professionals, receptionists, security guards, traffic policemen, salesmen working at counters in shops & departmental stores and persons doing desk jobs day in & day out are the worst sufferers of varicose veins. Previous fracture of bone during road traffic accidents, previous deep veins thrombosis or previous incidence of clotting in the veins is the significant contributor to development varicose veins & varicose ulcer.
Why ladies are more susceptible to Varicose Veins?
Among females, due to some hormones, the walls of veins becomes enlarged & dilated. Besides, during pregnancy because of lot of pressure on leg veins, veins become weak and varicosed. In majority of women after delivery varicosity disappear on its own & veins assume normal diameter & shape. In some ladies due to tumor of uterus or tumor in abdomen, varicose veins are likely to develop. One should be vigilant in such cases.
Fashion is playing havoc among ladies. High heeled sandals & tight belts & panties are significant contributors to development of varicose veins, as these items obstruct the normal flow of blood in veins.
What to do if you have Varicose Veins?
In our country people are quite ignorant of this disease of varicose veins. Patients of varicose veins due to ignorance, either goes to a general surgeon, a general physician or a bone specialist for consultation. When varicose veins gets complicated & turns into a varicose ulcer, these patients then go to either a skin specialist or a homoeopath for treatment of so-called eczema & skin problem. Sometimes varicose vein is misdiagnosed as arthritis or sciatica. Because of ignorance & misdiagnosis, a patient of varicose vein keeps on shunting from one specialist to another. This leads to a considerable delay in treatment and disability increases.
If any person is having blue colored visible spider-like veins or blue- colored long threads under skin & dark colored patches or ulcer in legs, immediately consult a Vascular Surgeon instead of a general surgeon. If suspicion of varicose vein arises, never make delay in seeking consultation & treatment by a Vascular Surgeon, so that timely intervention may prevent further complications.
Treatment of Varicose Veins
- For a effective treatment of varicose veins, always go to a hospital where services of a full-time Cardiovascular or Vascular surgeons are available
2. In the early stages of varicose veins, exercise and sometimes medical treatment including sclerotherapy suffice.
- In advanced stages of varicose veins, surgery is required. There are various surgical treatments, like phlebectomy, vein stripping. In phlebectomy, small- sized varicose vein are removed while in stripping long- sized varicose veins are removed. There are no harmful effects on the body or legs after removal of varicose veins.
- These days, new techniques like laser treatment (EVLT) as well as radio frequency ablation technique (RFA) are also employed for varicose veins treatment, which drastically shortens the hospital stay & significantly minimizes the number of cuts in the skin. No stitches are required in these techniques. Patient can go home the same day and resume his office work soon after.
Dr. K. K. Pandey is a Senior Consultant in Cardiothoracic, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, with nearly 30 years of surgical experience. He has previously worked at Batra Hospital, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi and the Bakulev Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery in Moscow. Dr. Pandey specializes in thoracic, lung and chest tumour surgery, varicose veins, vascular bypass procedures and diabetic foot management, using both open and minimally invasive techniques. A surgeon, writer and health educator, he regularly writes columns and books to make complex medical topics easy for the general public, believing that medical knowledge must reach every common person.