Varicose veins: causes, symptoms and treatment

Varicose veins or in ordinary people, varicose veins are irreversible and continuous vein lengthening and dilation, mainly in the lower limbs, and certain "nodes" (their valves are insufficient) formed due to pathological or genetic defects in the vein wall.

Today, varicose veins are a very common disease. It affects every tenth of men and every third of women. The more sedentary a person lives, the more likely he is to develop this disease.

The United States, France, and the United Kingdom-have the highest prevalence of varicose veins (over 30% of the population on average).

Causes of varicose veins

This usefulness appears as the venous pressure increases. It is generally believed that varicose veins only occur at the lower end, but there are also varicose veins in the esophagus, stomach, testicular veins, or small pelvis.

By the way, the latter is one of the causes of fairly common diseases such as hemorrhoids.

The main causes of varicose veins include:

  1. Gender: Usually among female representatives, varicose veins are caused by the intake of various hormonal drugs or pregnancy.
  2. Genetic
  3. Increased intravenous pressure, including due to weight problems, a sedentary lifestyle.

The above-mentioned causes lead to venous dilation and the destruction of the normal function of the venous valve.

Stage of disease

Varicose veins are divided into the following stages:

  • initial-It is characterized by soreness, swelling and heaviness in the legs. After all, disease prevention is more suitable at this stage.
  • The first stage-Numerous veins and spider veins that can be seen through the skin are also added to the above symptoms. A burning sensation in the foot and calf area is usually possible.
  • second stage-The number of varicose veins and asterisks increased sharply and became more obvious. The pain became unbearable, and the legs were bleeding profusely.
  • The third stage-The skin of the legs is directly affected. It became cracked, lifeless and dry. In addition, it can also change the pigmentation and structure of the leg skin. The vein nodes begin to assume a convex shape.

What happens to varicose veins?

Vein tumor

One of the first symptoms of varicose veins is frequent swelling of the legs, swelling and heaviness of the calves when sitting for a long time.

In addition, the same feature of varicose veins is the reduction or disappearance of these symptoms after a night of rest or walking.

If you do not start treatment on time, the following symptoms will occur-calf pain, calf muscle cramps, and fever in the legs.

Also on the leg, you can see the red and blue blood vessels "stars", the saphenous veins are dilated, and you can see the dark blue veins in the skin.

With advanced varicose veins, thrombophlebitis (expanded veins become inflamed and clots form in them), eczema or trophic ulcers in the affected area may develop.

In order to eliminate the risk of varicose veins, it is necessary to get rid of the main causes and external factors: smoking, drinking, and unhealthy diet.

Varicose veins of the lower extremities are caused by the lack of fiber-rich foods in the diet. It is an intestinal cleanser that can remove waste, pus, toxins and radionuclides from the body.

The form of varicose veins

There are the following types (forms) of lower varicose veins:

  1. The defective local venous disease is discharged through the communicating vein or pathological vein.
  2. Local lesions of intradermal or subcutaneous blood vessels without reflux.
  3. Extensive venous involvement with deep venous blood flow defects.
  4. Extensive venous disease, defective blood flow through communicating veins.

In addition, singly isolated, such as the reticulated form of varicose veins. It is a common type of varicose veins, accompanied by dilation of intradermal venules

diagnosis

Leech for varicose veins

When observing the first symptoms, you should immediately contact a specialist in treating venous diseases-a phlebologist.

The success of treating varicose veins in the legs largely depends on when you start the treatment. Of course, the sooner you see a doctor, the lower the risk of complications.

After the first examination, the doctor will prescribe an instrumental examination, usually a Doppler ultrasound examination.

If necessary, radiopaque and radionuclide methods are used.

Through these methods, special substances are injected into the blood, and then their distribution in the blood vessels is studied.

How to treat varicose veins

Varicose veins can be treated in 3 ways:

  1. Sclerotherapy.
  2. Perform surgical operations on varicose veins.
  3. Medication (conservative treatment).

In addition to the above methods, the complex also uses medical knitwear and physical therapy exercises.

Below we will consider each of these three methods in more detail.

Sclerotherapy

Sclerotherapy for the treatment of varicose veins

Scleteropia is a painless, non-surgical, and most importantly, high-quality and effective treatment of varicose veins. Compared with other methods, this is a fairly young way to treat varicose veins.

One of the main advantages of sclerotherapy is that the treatment does not require hospitalization, that is, it is performed in an outpatient clinic, and it does not affect the patient's normal life rhythm in any way.

The essence of this method is to carefully inject a special hardening drug into the "diseased" vein, so that the vein produces a kind of "adhesion".

After the operation, the bandage must be worn for a week. During this period, the veins become overgrowth, then disappear and restore blood flow.

Unfortunately, not all types of varicose veins can be treated with this method. If the patient needs surgery, then sclerotherapy is not only useless in this case, it can also cause many complications and may even worsen.

For example, there are varicose veins classified by burn degree, and varicose veins are divided into degrees. This method can only treat varicose veins of 1 degree.

As for the consequences of sclerotherapy, it retains small bruises and slight pigmentation of the "sick" veins in a short period of time.

This method is performed by a professional doctor and guarantees a long-lasting effect: the dilated veins are "closed" and blood flow will never return through them.

Operation

Surgical treatment of varicose veins or laser surgery for varicose veins. Currently, this method is one of the main methods. One, there are some contraindications:

  1. During pregnancy or for women who have just given birth, it is recommended to wait at least 5 weeks, because in many cases, varicose veins during pregnancy will disappear on their own without any intervention.
  2. If you only care about the aesthetic aspect of the problem and there are no other symptoms (inflamed veins, pain).
  3. Surgical methods for the treatment of varicose veins are only indicated when other methods are meaningless or will not bring results.

Surgical treatment of varicose veins is usually performed in an outpatient clinic, and patients do not need to be hospitalized.

There are 3 methods for surgical treatment of varicose veins-ligation, stripping and venuleectomy.

  • ligation-This is a varicose vein ligation. Usually, this method is used in combination with other methods, for example, as a supplement to stripping or phlebectomy.
  • Peel off-A surgical method for the treatment of varicose veins, in which a small probe is used to remove the "sick" vein.
  • Microphlebectomy-The essence is to remove varicose veins by puncture, which is performed on the skin.

Drug treatment

Medication is an equally important part of varicose vein treatment. Competent drugs can not only help remove the fairly basic manifestations of varicose veins, but also reduce the risk of complications.

Most of these drugs help relieve swelling and pain syndromes, improve blood flow, etc.

These drugs can help:

  1. Improve lymphatic drainage function.
  2. Increase systemic venous tone.
  3. Improve the microcirculation of blood rheology disorders.

It should be noted that the use of these drugs, like any other drugs, should be carried out after a thorough examination and in accordance with the doctor's prescription.

Treat varicose veins with folk remedies

In addition to traditional medicine, there are recipes from the "folk" first aid kit:

  1. Take a few cloves of garlic and chop them. Please note that only garlic with a white shell is used! Then stir with two tablespoons of butter. We applied the porridge to the "pain" vein overnight, put it on parchment paper, fixed it with a bandage, and finally wrapped it in a warm scarf. After taking a shower in the morning, we put on warm clothes.
  2. Hop infusion is an equally effective folk remedy for varicose veins. Take the hop cone (be sure to dry) and pour 1 cup of boiling water. Let it brew for an hour, then drink it in a glass half an hour before meals.

And remember that varicose veins are not a word, it is still possible and must be treated, and the sooner you go to a specialist, the easier and more effective the treatment itself will be.

healthy!