Varicose veins are one of the most common vascular pathologies.
Varicose veins still bothered our ancestors, but then doctors unsuccessfully tried to overcome the disease. 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 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 the one that makes up 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.
For the development of varicose veins, special conditions are also required, 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 in the legs often occur in people whose work is associated with prolonged standing: 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 occurs in people leading a sedentary lifestyle.
The factors that interfere with blood circulation and cause varicose veins in the legs also include wearing tight clothes and shoes, the habit of sitting with legs crossed. The cause of the development of varicose veins of the pelvis can be practiced incomplete intercourse as a method of contraception.
Symptoms of varicose veins
The symptoms of varicose veins in the legs are as follows:
- Feeling very tired, feeling of heaviness and fullness in the legs, worse in the evening;
- Pain in the legs, which does not have a clear localization, aching and pulling 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 interlacing of thin vessels of a purple or cyanotic color. As the disease progresses, large veins begin to appear in the form of sinuous swollen subcutaneous cords, the so-called worm-like veins;
- In 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 deterioration in the patient's quality of life (trophic ulcer), and in some cases even death (pulmonary embolism due to venous thrombosis of the lower extremities).
Symptoms of varicose veins of the pelvis 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;
- Profuse 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 noticed at all, and are discovered by chance 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, pulling unilateral pain in this area that appears after loading.
Diagnosis of varicose veins
The diagnosis is based on the 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 angioscanning.
If it is difficult to diagnose pelvic varicose veins in women, trans-uterine phlebography can be used.
To confirm the diagnosis of testicular varicose veins, special functional tests are used (for example, the Valsava test).
Varicose Veins Treatment
Treatment of varicose veins depends on the location of the pathology, and can be conservative or surgical. The most commonly used combination of several of them.
As a conservative treatment for varicose veins in the legs, drug and compression therapy is used. The use of drugs does not have an independent meaning, but it helps to alleviate the symptoms of varicose veins in the legs: to eliminate the feeling of heaviness, fatigue and pain.
Compression therapy consists in wearing medical compression hosiery, which has a compressive and massaging effect on superficial veins, helping to eliminate venous congestion. Compression therapy is highly effective and can be considered as an independent method of treating varicose veins in the legs at an early stage of development or in the postoperative period. Currently, medical compression hosiery is created from high-tech materials and does not cause any problems during long-term wearing, including an aesthetic one.
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 veins. 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, 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 achievements, does not eliminate the main cause of the disease - the weakness of the vascular wall. Therefore, the treatment carried out requires lifelong prevention of recurrence of the disease, and, if possible, complete elimination of factors contributing to the development of varicose veins. Only this approach will make it possible to speak of 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 a symptomatic therapy that can reduce 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.