Your Beautiful Magazine!
Page 18
Female Focus
Varicose Veins
Hello again. Now that summer is over it is time to talk once again about another common complaint that affects a large number of people, both male and female. Varicose veins are dilated blood vessels that mainly affect lower limbs and if not dealt with correctly can go on to cause major problems.
The venous return system has two main layers or circuits; one deep in-between the muscles and a superficial one directly under the skin. The purpose of this is to control heat exchange, so, in the summer, blood is allowed to circulate via the superficial layer allowing it to exchange heat from outside of the body much the same as in a radiator or a freezer, whereas in winter is forced to circulate via the deeper circuit in order to keep it warm.
This not so simple mechanism has relative importance as now a days we normally dress for the cold and try to avoid heat with fans and aircon but, when affected, can give problems.
Veins in the lower limbs have valves, a one way flow mechanism that allows blood to go up but stops it from returning and those valves happen to be in small intervals. When one of these valves fails, the pressure held by the one below is doubled and can cause it to fail as well, then pressure is triple over the following one so the whole vein fails like a zip causing a large and dilated vein where blood is slowed down.
There are several consequences to this. The vein will normally keep on growing in diameter becoming visible, the blood will slow down to the point of increasing coagulation forming blood cloths which can later migrate and give embolisms especially in the lungs. Also this slow blood flow will be a cause of fluid accumulation in lower limbs causing oedemas and making legs heavy and very uncomfortable. They can also be the cause of cramps and pain to the point of making walking unbearable. In advanced cases, the skin deteriorates, gets very thin and dark varicose ulcers happen spontaneously or as a result of a minor trauma. Healing is difficult with risk of infections and treatment often requires plastic surgery and grafting.
The primary treatment for varicose veins is compression garments such as stockings to force the veins to collapse and the blood to run by the deeper circuit where the force of the surrounding muscles force the blood to flow. These garments can be unbearable in hot climates and uncomfortable when needed day and night.
Other treatments such as drugs which are used to increase the muscular tone of the veins, have not proved to be effective so quite often the only treatment advised is aspirin or blood thinners to reduce the chances of embolism and to treat skin problems with local ointments.
Through the years a number of procedures have been suggested with stripping one of the most popular. Stripping is done in theatre under general anaesthesia and basically it consists of stripping the major superficial vein from the groin to the heel. Sometimes it is insufficient as other smaller veins in the
area may take the lead and will grow larger and come back again some years later.
Other alternatives are to inject them with different products that will collapse them, stop the blood flowing through them with the body reabsorbing them over time. These veins may also come back after some time so it is advised to do some sort of maintenance visits every so often. The first treatment may require a number of injections, it always different from patient to patient but later sessions may only require one or two every 2-5 years.
In some cases, specially when veins are large and quite visible, they can be removed by small stripping incisions performed under local anaesthesia with good results.
As each case is different, my personal advice is to have them seen to and discuss the alternatives but I would like to insist that patients should not wait until they have become too large or when the skin has become ulcerative as results often are directly related to an early approach.
Tel: 965 792 418 11am - 1pm or 652 286 720 (24hr).
Dr.I.Poole@gmail.com
Article supplied by Dr. I. Poole, Clinica El Arenal which can be found at Av. Arenal 2, Jávea.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60