Varicose veins are one of the most common vascular diseases.
Varicose veins still bothered our ancestors, but then doctors tried unsuccessfully to overcome the disease. In our time, chronic venous insufficiency continues to disfigure the beautiful legs of men and women, however, modern medicine offers a lot of methods for how to get rid of varicose veins infoot.
According to some reports, more than 10% of the population suffers from the disease in one form or another, women are more susceptible.
Varicose veins can occur at any age, even in childhood. The factor that determines the development of the disease is heredity.
Causes of varicose veins
The main cause of varicose veins is a genetically determined defect of the connective tissue, including the tissue that makes up the vessels. Genetic predisposition means that if first-degree relatives have any form of varicose veins, that person is at increased risk of developing it.
For the development of varicose veins, special conditions are also required, which are created by the patient's lifestyle. These factors cause the habitual stagnation of blood in the lower body by creating a static load.
Varicose veins of the legs often occur in people who have jobs that require long standing: hairdressers, shop assistants, surgeons.
Pelvic varices can be triggered during pregnancy, as an enlarged uterus can cause prolonged compression of the pelvic floor veins. In addition, pelvic varicose veins occur in people who lead a sedentary lifestyle.
Factors that impede blood circulation and cause varicose veins in the legs include wearing tight clothes, shoes, and the habit of sitting with legs crossed. The reason for the development of pelvic varicose veins may be the practice of incomplete intercourse as a method of contraception.
Symptoms of varicose veins
Symptoms of varicose veins in the legs are as follows:
- Feeling very tired, heavy and full of legs, heavier at night;
- Leg pain is not clearly localized, has the nature of tug-of-war, pain syndrome also increases in dimension;
- The appearance of external symptoms of varicose veins in the legs. Telangiectasias, or spider veins, are alternations of thin vessels that are purple or blue-violet. As the disease progresses, large veins begin to appear as swollen, sinusoidal cords called worm veins;
- In the severe stage, signs of complications of varicose veins of the legs are involved: thrombophlebitis, trophic ulcer, thrombosis. These are serious complications that significantly reduce the quality of life of patients (trophic ulcers), and even cause death (pulmonary embolism due to venous thrombosis of the lower extremities).
The symptoms of pelvic varices in women are non-specific and resemble those of a female genital tract infection, which is why diagnostic errors are common.
The main symptoms of pelvic varicose veins are:
- Intermittent pain in the pelvic region. The dependence of the pain syndrome on the phase of the menstrual cycle is determined, just before the onset of menstruation, pain, as a rule, increases;
- Excessive secretion of mucus from the vagina.
A special case of iliac vein insufficiency is hemorrhoids with all its inherent symptoms.
Symptoms of varicocele in men are often overlooked, and are discovered incidentally during a physical exam. As a rule, this is a characteristic worm-like pattern of an enlarged venous plexus on one side of the scrotum, followed by unilateral pain in this area that appears after loading.
Diagnosis of varicose veins
Diagnosis is based on symptoms of varicose veins, external examination data, as well as the results of hardware research methods. In this capacity, the most informative are Doppler ultrasound and duplex ultrasound angiography.
If varicocele is difficult to diagnose in a woman, transvaginal computed tomography may be used.
To confirm the diagnosis of varicocele, special functional tests are used (eg, Valsava test).
Varicose veins treatment
Treatment of varicose veins depends on the location of the pathology, which can be conservative or surgical. The most common combination of several of them.
As a conservative treatment for varicose veins in the legs, compression therapy and drugs are used. The use of the drug does not have an independent meaning, but it helps to relieve the symptoms of varicose veins of the legs: eliminates the feeling of heaviness, fatigue and pain.
Compression therapy consists of wearing medical pressed knitwear, which exerts compression and massage on superficial veins, which helps to remove venous congestion. Compression therapy is highly effective and can be considered as an independent method for the treatment of varicose veins in the legs at the initial stage of development or in the postoperative period. Currently, medical compression knitwear is created from high-tech materials and does not cause any problems in long-term wear, including aesthetics.
The most radical treatment for all forms of varicose veins is surgery. Currently, veniologists prefer minimally invasive techniques: sclerotherapy of veins, laser surgery, endoscopic vein resection, and microsurgery. These techniques allow you to achieve excellent results with the lowest risk of surgical and postoperative complications.
The classic surgical treatment of varicose veins is also used, in which the damaged portion of the vein is bandaged and excised. In this case, blood flow is ignored.
It must be understood that the modern method of treatment of varicose veins, with all its achievements, does not eliminate the main cause of the disease - the weakening of the vessel walls. Therefore, the treatment carried out requires the lifelong prevention of the recurrence of the disease, and, if possible, the complete elimination of factors that contribute to the development of venous insufficiency. Only in this way can it be said to completely cure this disease.
The use of folk remedies for varicose veins
The folk methods of treating varicose veins are widely and actively applied, but the effect is often insignificant. The use of folk remedies for varicose veins is considered a symptomatic therapy to relieve the discomfort caused by the disease and its complications. As a rule, decoctions and ointments based on medicinal plants, which have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects, are used for this purpose.