Keeping yourself rooted in good mental and physical health is key at whatever age. It can be true that while you get older it can be harder to maintain exerting yourself physically. One of the most surprising is the age at which one of the most common leg issues can impact you. Varicose veins. From young men who spend all day at their desks working, or even those that spend too much sculpting their leg muscles. As with many issues in life it is about balance.
How do Varicose Veins Form?
Your body has a network of veins that spreads through all of your limbs, carrying blood between your extremities and your heart. The veins in your pelvis, legs, and feet have a harder job ahead of them, as they have to push the blood against gravity. To do this, the veins have small valves inside them. These valves help to stop the blood only flowing downwards, and push the blood back towards the heart instead. When these valves are put under too much pressure or are overworked, they can stop working effectively and can fail. If this happens, blood begins to pool in the vein because it isn’t being pumped back up properly.
Blood pooling in the veins can lead to many complications, and rapidly becomes painful. The vein begins to swell and twist, as the blood causes the walls of the vein to distort. Often you can see this kind of bulging vein through the skin of the leg. Sometimes blood can also leak into the tissue around the vein, and this may appear to be bruised skin or an ulcer. In some cases this will also cause the skin to dry out and flake, and can become venous eczema. The biggest risk is that a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis) will develop, which can cause a stroke or death. Varicose veins may look like a cosmetic issue, but they should be taken seriously.
There are a number of different treatment options for varicose veins, but most of them fall broadly into heat-based or chemical-based treatments. Generally these are outpatient surgeries, that take place using local anaesthetic. Having varicose vein surgery doesn’t need to be a big deal, and in many cases you will recover quickly within only a few weeks. This outpatient surgery is quick and easy, but there are a few steps that you should take to make sure your recovery goes as smoothly as possible
Tips for Recovery
Your varicose vein treatment and recovery can be simple and uncomplicated, but make sure you follow some precautions.
The main thing that you should do in the first few days after surgery is rest. Your leg and the incision site will feel stiff and sore for a week or two after the surgery, so you should make sure to take it easy during this period. Keep your legs elevated for the first few days, and don’t do anything strenuous. There will also be bruising at first, which will fade after a couple of weeks as well. You can use arnica for bruising and pain relief,
The exact length of time that you will need to rest for will depend on how many veins you had treated, and exactly where the veins were located.
It’s extremely important that you don’t take any long-haul flights for at least four weeks after your varicose vein surgery. Long-haul flights can contribute to blood clots in the legs due to the pressure changes in the cabin and the long periods of sitting down without moving your legs. If you have just had surgery, these kind of flights can slow down your recovery. If you need to take short flights, this is okay after one week has passed since your surgery.
Another option for helping to speed up your recovery is to wear compression stockings. Generally, you should wear compression stockings for the first two to four weeks after your surgery, as these will help to reduce the pain and bruising from the surgery.
Your surgeon and medical team will also give you painkillers to manage the pain after surgery. Make sure that you take these as prescribed and for as long as your surgeon suggests that you do.
Recovering from varicose vein surgery shouldn’t be too complicated or painful, but you do need to take some steps and precautions for reducing any possible pain that you might experience. Make sure that you take care not to overexert yourself and don’t take any risks when it comes to flying. New treatments keep being developed, and with any luck recovery will also become more simple as treatments improve.
Leave a Reply