Varicose Veins
Varicose Veins
Something New for Aching Legs
At the beach you wear ankle-length cover-ups. At work you wear mid-calf skirts and dresses with dark hose or boots. At parties you dare to wear an above-the-knee skirt--with bright tights or panty hose.
And at home you wear pants, pants and pants.
What are you trying to hide? A bulging blue varicose vein that snakes along your calf almost from ankle to knee.
"Varicose veins are like a pair of stretched-out panty hose," says Lenise Banse, M.D., a dermatologist and vein expert at the Northeast Family Dermatology Center in Clinton Township, Michigan. They're stretched and baggy--the veins, not the hose--because the valves in your legs just aren't doing their job.
The problem, says Dr. Banse, is physiology. Arteries, which have muscles along their walls to push the blood along, take blood away from the heart. Veins, not aided by muscles, return the blood to the heart.
To compensate for the fact that blood returning to the heart is going against gravity, the veins have valves every so often that act like a set of French doors. They open one way only--up, toward the heart. A valve opens, the blood goes through and the valve closes.
"But sometimes those valves start opening in the opposite direction," says Dr. Banse. "The blood reverses direction and flows back toward the feet, pressure on the veins increases and the veins become stretched, or varicose."
What puts you at risk?
"Genetics, mostly," says Toby Shaw, M.D., associate professor of dermatology at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences MCP-Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia. If your mother had varicose veins, you probably have them, too. But estrogen production, pregnancy, being constantly on your feet and aging play a part as well.
THROB NO MORE
Fortunately, nobody has to put up with unsightly veins that make your legs feel tired and heavy, says Dr. Banse. Here's what doctors suggest
you do to minimize discomfort and keep varicose veins from worsening.
When To See A Doctor Usually, varicose veins are unsightly and uncomfortable but not worrisome--unless they lead to a blood clot, says Lenise Banse, M.D., a dermatologist and vein expert at the Northeast Family Dermatology Center in Clinton Township, Michigan. See your doctor if you develop either of these warning signs. * Leg pain occurs when you elevate your legs.
* Leg pain wakes you up at night.
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Tighten up. Pull on a pair of support panty hose, says Dr. Banse. This will keep your veins tight so they can't stretch out. Tights are even better, she adds--especially the Lycra exercise tights that go so well with long tunics and sweaters.
Enlist the support of compression hose. "If you're on your feet all day, buy stockings that provide 20 to 30 millimeters of pressure," says Dr. Shaw. The numbers are on the package. Look for them at your local drugstore.
Pull panty hose on while you're still in bed. Whether you use regular support hose or compression support hose, "keep the stockings by your bed at night and put them on before you get out of bed in the morning, before gravity pulls blood through the valves to pool," says Dr. Shaw.
Free your thighs. Avoid garments that constrict at the groin, says Dr. Banse. Tight girdles and regular panty hose--which do not have the graduated, structured give of support hose--put pressure on leg veins and encourage them to stretch.
Stick a pillow under your feet. When sitting, elevate your legs three to six inches higher than your hips to take the pressure off your veins and relieve that heavy, achy feeling, says Dr. Shaw. At night, sleep with one pillow under your head and two under your feet.
Flex, flex, flex. Veins contain no muscles to help you push blood back to your heart, but the skeletal muscles in your legs can give you an extra hand, says Dr. Banse. "So take a break every hour and walk around. Any kind of movement that flexes and contracts the leg muscles so they can 'milk' the veins will discourage the veins from stretching."