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 day, 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 on the legs.
According to some reports, more than 10% of the population suffers from the disease in one form or another, women are more susceptible to it.
Varicose veins can occur at any age, even in childhood. The determining factor in the development of the disease is a hereditary predisposition.
The causes of varicose veins
The main cause of varicose veins is a genetically determined imperfection of the connective tissue, including that which makes up the vessels. Hereditary predisposition means that if the first-line relatives suffer from any form of varicose veins, then the person is at risk for this disease.
For the development of varicose veins, special conditions are also necessary, created by the patient's lifestyle. These factors cause the usual pool of blood in the lower body creating a static load.
Varicose veins in the legs often occur in people whose work is associated with a prolonged position: hairdressers, shop assistants, operating surgeons.
Pelvic varicose veins can be triggered 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 the use of tight-fitting clothes and shoes, the habit of sitting cross-legged. The reason for the development of varicose veins of the pelvis can be practiced in an incomplete relationship as a method of contraception.
Symptoms of varicose veins
Symptoms of varicose veins in the legs are as follows:
- Feeling of great tiredness, feeling of heaviness and fullness in the legs, which worsens in the evening;
- Pain in the legs, which does not have a clear localization, pain and traction in nature, the pain syndrome also increases in the afternoon;
- The appearance of external symptoms of varicose veins in the legs. Telangiectasias, or spider veins, are an intertwining of thin purple or cyanotic vessels. As the disease progresses, large veins begin to appear in the form of sinuous swollen subcutaneous cords, the so-called vermiform veins;
- At an advanced stage, signs of complications of varicose veins in the legs join: thrombophlebitis, trophic ulcers, thrombosis. These are formidable complications that cause a significant worsening of the patient's quality of life (trophic ulcer), and in some cases even death (pulmonary embolism due to venous thrombosis of the lower limbs).
Symptoms of pelvic varicose veins in women are nonspecific and resemble the symptoms of an inflammatory disease of the female genital tract, which is why diagnostic errors are often made.
The main symptoms of pelvic varicose veins are:
- Intermittent 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 manifestation of varicose veins of the pelvis is hemorrhoids with all its inherent symptoms.
Symptoms of testicular varicose veins in men are often not noticeable at all and are discovered by accident during a medical examination. As a rule, this is a characteristic worm-like pattern of an enlarged venous plexus on one side of the scrotum, which causes one-sided pain in this area that appears after loading.
Diagnosis of varicose veins
Diagnosis is based on the symptoms of varicose veins, external examination data and the results of hardware research methods. In this capacity, the most informative are Doppler ultrasound and duplex ultrasound angioscanning.
If it is difficult to diagnose pelvic varicose veins in women, transuterine venography can 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 commonly used combination of many of them.
As a conservative treatment for varicose veins of the legs, drug and compression therapy is used. The use of drugs does not have an autonomous meaning, but helps to relieve the symptoms of varicose veins in the legs: to eliminate the feeling of heaviness, fatigue and pain.
Compression therapy consists of wearing compression medical stockings, which have a compressive and massaging effect on the superficial veins, helping to eliminate venous congestion. Compression therapy is highly effective and can be considered an independent method of treating varicose veins in the legs 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 problems during prolonged wear, including aesthetic ones.
The most radical treatment for all types of varicose veins is surgery. Now phlebologists prefer minimally invasive techniques: sclerosing of varicose veins, laser surgery, endoscopic phlebectomy, microsurgical phlebectomy of the veins. These techniques allow to obtain excellent results with the minimum risk of surgical and postoperative complications.
The classic surgical treatment of varicose veins is also used, in which the damaged part of the vein is bandaged and excised. In this case, the blood flow is bypassed.
It should be understood that the modern treatment of varicose veins, with all its results, does not eliminate the main cause of the disease - the weakness of the vascular wall. Therefore, the treatment carried out requires permanent prevention of the recurrence of the disease and, if possible, the complete elimination of factors contributing to the development of varicose veins. Only this approach will allow to talk about a complete cure of the disease.
The 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 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.