Varicose veins are one of the most common vascular pathologies.
Varicose veins still bothered our ancestors, but then doctors tried to overcome the disease without success. In our time, chronic venous insufficiency continues to disfigure beautiful female and male legs, however, modern medicine offers a whole range of methods on how to get rid of varicose veins in the legs.
According to some reports, more than 10% of the population suffering from the disease in one form or another, women are more susceptible to it.
Varicose veins can appear at any age, even in childhood. The determining factor in the development of the disease is an inherited predisposition.
Causes of varicose veins
The main cause of varicose veins is a genetically determined imperfection of the connective tissue, including what constitutes the vessels. Hereditary predisposition means that if first-line relatives suffer from any form of varicose veins, then the person is at risk for this disease.
The development of varicose veins also requires special conditions created by the patient's lifestyle. These factors cause normal blood stagnation in the lower body creating a static load.
Varicose veins in the legs often occur in people whose work is associated with prolonged standing: hairdressers, shop assistants, operative surgeons.
Varicose pelvic veins can be caused by pregnancy, as an enlarged uterus can cause prolonged compression of the pelvic floor veins. Also, varicose veins of the pelvis occur in people who lead a sedentary lifestyle.
Factors that interfere with blood circulation and cause varicose veins in the legs also include wearing tight clothing and shoes, the habit of sitting with crossed legs. The reason for the development of varicose veins of the pelvis can be practiced incomplete intercourse as a method of contraception.
Symptoms of varicose veins
Symptoms of varicose veins in the legs are as follows:
- Feeling very tired, feeling heavy and full in the legs, worse in the evening;
- Pain in the leg, which does not have a clear localization, pain and traction in nature, pain syndrome also increases in the afternoon;
- The appearance of external symptoms of varicose veins in the legs. Telangiectasias, or spider veins, are a combination of thin purple or cyanotic vessels. As the disease progresses, large veins begin to appear in the form of swollen sinusoidal subcutaneous cords, so-called worm-like veins;
- At an advanced stage the signs of complications of varicose veins in the legs join: thrombophlebitis, trophic ulcers, thrombosis. These are frightening complications that cause a significant deterioration in the patient's quality of life (trophic ulcers), and in some cases even death (pulmonary embolism due to venous thrombosis of the lower extremities).
The symptoms of pelvic varicose veins in women are nonspecific and resemble the symptoms of an inflammatory disease of the female genital tract, so diagnostic errors are often made.
The main symptoms of pelvic varicose veins are:
- Persistent aching pain in the pelvic area. The dependence of the pain syndrome on the phase of the menstrual cycle is traced, shortly before the onset of menstruation, the pain, as a rule, intensifies;
- Abundant mucous discharge from the vagina.
A special case of the appearance of varicose veins of the pelvis are hemorrhoids with all their inherent symptoms.
Symptoms of testicular varicose veins in men are often not noticed at all and are discovered accidentally during a medical examination. As a rule, this is a characteristic pattern like the worm of an enlarged venous plexus on one side of the scrotum, attracting unilateral pain in this area that appears after loading.
Diagnosis of varicose veins
Diagnosis is based on varicose vein symptoms, external examination data, and the results of hardware search methods. In this capacity, the most informative are Doppler ultrasound and duplex ultrasound angioscan.
If it is difficult to diagnose pelvic varices in women, trans-uterine phlebography may be used.
To confirm the diagnosis of testicular varicose veins, special functional tests are used (for example, the Valsava test).
Treatment of varicose veins
Treatment of varicose veins depends on the location of the pathology and can be conservative or surgical. The most used combination of some of them.
As a conservative treatment for varicose veins in the legs, drug therapy and compression are used. The use of medication does not have an independent meaning, but helps alleviate the symptoms of varicose veins in the legs: eliminating the feeling of heaviness, fatigue and pain.
Compression therapy consists of wearing compression stockings, which has a compressing and massaging effect on superficial veins, helping to eliminate venous congestion. Compression therapy is very effective and can be considered as an independent method for treating varicose veins in the leg at an early stage of development or in the postoperative period. Currently, medical compression stockings are created from high-tech materials and do not cause any problems during extended wear, including aesthetic ones.
The most radical treatment for all types of varicose veins is surgery. Now phlebologists prefer minimally invasive techniques: varicose vein sclerosis, laser surgery, endoscopic phlebectomy, microsurgical venous phlebectomy. These techniques allow you to achieve excellent results with minimal risk of surgical and postoperative complications.
The classic surgical treatment of varicose veins is also used, where the damaged part of the vein is bandaged and removed. In this case, blood flow is bypassed.
It should be understood that the modern treatment of varicose veins, with all its achievements, does not eliminate the main cause of the disease - the weakness of the vascular wall. Therefore, the treatment performed requires lifelong prevention of recurrence of the disease and, if possible, complete elimination of the factors that contribute to the development of varicose veins. Only this approach will make it possible to talk about a complete cure of the disease.
Use of folk remedies for varicose veins
Folk remedies for varicose veins are used quite widely and actively, but their effectiveness is usually insignificant. The use of folk remedies for varicose veins is justified as a symptomatic therapy to reduce the discomfort caused by the disease and its complications. As a rule, decoctions and ointments based on medicinal plants are used for this purpose, which have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects.