MYTH: STANDING A LOT GIVES YOU VARICOSE VEINS OR VENOUS REFLUX
If you have GOOD valves in your veins, standing a lot during the day will not cause varicose veins.
If you have BAD valves in your veins however, standing will make your venous reflux worse! Standing all day gives gravity a chance to pull down against the normally upward flow of the blood that is going up your leg to your heart, and if you're standing still, the muscles in your legs are not squeezing the veins to help move the blood along. In the case of somebody who has dysfunctional valves inside the veins, standing a lot will lead to more opportunity for blood to pool in the lower parts of the legs which adds pressure inside the veins. Increased and prolonged pressure in veins with bad valves may lead to varicose veins that are visible.
MYTH: IF I DON'T SEE ANY BLUE OR BULGING VEINS IN MY LEGS, MY VEINS ARE FINE
You can have diseased veins in your legs and not be able to see a thing. A much better indicator of how healthy your veins may be is to notice how your legs and feet feel. Symptoms of venous reflux disease of the leg include pain, itching, heaviness, tenderness in the skin, night cramps, restless legs, tiredness, daily swelling of ankles or feet, numbness in the toes, or in severe cases a "whooshing downward" feeling in the legs when you get up to walk. Any one of these symptoms may clue you in as to wether or not your veins are functioning well.
F.Y.I.: I have scanned my own veins with the ultrasound and although my legs look fine and my only symptom is mild heaviness in the legs when I run, I have enlarged veins and moderate reflux myself. I'm proof positive that you can't tell by looking.
MYTH: ONLY OLD PEOPLE GET VARICOSE VEINS
Not true at all! I have had many patients who are in their 20's, 30's, and 40's. In fact, I had one patient in her late teens who had miserable symptoms and severe reflux disease. She was a young mother who's symptoms manifested during her pregnancy.
MYTH: EXERCISE WILL PREVENT VARICOSE VEINS
Oh, how I wish this one were true. You have two different systems of veins in your legs. The superficial system which is closer to the surface of your skin, and the deep system that runs down in the muscle tissue closer to the leg bones. Exercise will do a lot of good for your legs as far as your deep veins are concerned. The squeezing action of the muscles in your legs push on the deep veins which moves the blood through the deep veins back up to the heart. Very, very important! But exercise will not keep the valves in your superficial veins from going bad if heredity has pre-disposed you to it. Your superficial veins are what turn into varicose veins. Sorry, Cookie. Keep working out anyway. It's good for you.
MYTH: THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF VARICOSE VEINS IS TO SURGICALLY "STRIP" THEM OUT
Not any more! In my grandmother's day the only options were to wear compression stockings for comfort OR have "vein stripping", a kind of nice sounding term for a pretty rough procedure that left the patient with a leg full of scars. And just to add insult to injury, sometimes so called "stripped" veins that had bits and pieces left behind in the leg will re-grow a whole new, diseased vein. I've seen re-grown great saphenous veins with my own eyes, er, well, ultrasound.
There are several treatment options for closing varicose veins now instead of surgically removing them. Treatments that use radio frequencies, heat from lasers inside the vein, and injections of scarring agents into the vein are just a few options to research and discuss with your doctor to find the treatment that is appropriate for you.
