Why you shouldn’t ignore varicose veins in your legs
Co m f o r t a b l e and 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 it is a direct result of a sedentary life style, adopted by modern youth today.
The problem of varicose veins has become very common these days. According to one estimate, 15 to 20 per cent of the population in African countries 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 veins among young females who wear tight jeans and high-heeled sandals.
What are varicose veins?
Varicose veins are actually abnormal veins lying just beneath the skin of your leg and thigh. These varicose veins could be prominently visible, corkscrew like, entangled in one another. It looks as if a number of earthworms or blue-coloured 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 the heart and then lung for purification. The job of the vein is difficult, as it has to push blood upwards from leg against gravity towards the heart.
This function of vein is made possible by valves which open up and 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 oneway direction and in the process they become dilated and 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 and heaviness in the feet. Skin of the leg develops black or blue coloured patches. In thigh and leg, under the skin develop snake or earthworm like blue colored veins, resulting into distortion of the shape of leg and foot.
A person suffering from varicose veins, develops pain in the foot and leg while walking or on prolonged standing. If varicose veins are not treated effectively, the leg skin will develop eczema and an ulcer that never heals. These ulcers caused by varicose veins are called varicose ulcers. Sometimes there occurs massive bleeding from varicose ulcer. Ultimately, a person is forced to lead a disabled life.
What causes varicose veins?
In 40 % of patients, varicose veins are hereditary and run in families for generations. The other important causative factors are obesity, lack of exercise, 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 exercise, the 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 and tortuous.
In today’s modern age, a lot of occupations and professions have sprung up where a person is required to either constantly stand up 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 and departmental stores and persons doing desk jobs day in and day out are the worst sufferers of varicose veins.
Previous fracture of the bone in road traffic accidents, previous deep vein thrombosis or previous incidence of clotting in the veins are the significant contributors to the development of varicose veins and varicose ulcer. To be continued next week---
Dr Pandey is a Senior Consultant in the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi India.
Mobile--- 9911,114081; 9810,114081
Email: drpandeykk@gmail.com, drpandeyin @yahoo.com