Varicose Veins In Pregnancy Can Be Painful
Varicose Veins In Pregnancy
Although pregnancy is one in every of the foremost wonderful experiences and happy times in life for a woman, it can trigger various types of health issues. One among these problems is that the chance of developing varicose veins during and after gestation.
What Are Varicose Veins Again?
Veins are pipes within the legs that return blood to the body (and the heart). There are enough veins within the legs to make fishnet stockings, and, once they’re working correctly, they are not visible within the least on the skin surface.
Varicose veins are the veins that appear dilated, tortuous, and blue in the lower limbs(legs). They’ll affect both men and ladies at any age but frequently are visible after pregnancy. They typically worsen with time and, if left untreated, they’ll even cause more severe conditions like phlebitis or damage to the skin within the lower leg.
Why Do Varicose Veins Occur?
When we rise, the direction of the blood flow is against gravity. So, nature has placed valves within the veins to keep the blood flowing in the proper direction. When these valves fail, the blood tends to flow the inaccurate way (so down the leg) and causes the veins to swell. Patients recognize the problem when spotting blue bulging marks on the legs, which can ache and feel quite uncomfortable.
What Happens During Pregnancy?
Pregnancy doesn’t directly cause varicose veins, but it does make them worse. Around one-third of the pregnant females have the tendency to develop varicose veins.
While a woman is pregnant, aching, discomfort, swelling, and heaviness within the legs are common. Some patients can develop prominent veins on the vulva, and even more serious conditions like painful superficial thrombophlebitis and Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) can occur. Usually, the issues worsen within the later phase of pregnancy.
However once the pregnancy is over, the varicose veins can revert back to normal physiology but the outward appearance of these veins can cause cosmetically uneasiness in them. It’s then possible to urge definitive treatment, which suggests surgery.
Why Can Pregnancy Make Varicose Veins Worse?
It is believed that there are two principal reasons why pregnancy makes a leaky vein worse: hormones and the pressure of an enlarging uterus.
As a pregnancy advances, the body must produce hormones that make tissues and ligaments relax, so that, later on, the baby can undergo the passage, so similarly these hormones can cause relaxation in the muscle wall of the large lower limb veins, this leads to severe dilatation and poses an increased risk to develop varicose veins
As the pregnant female enters her last trimester the size of the uterus enlarges to accommodate the growing fetus. Consequently, the heavier uterus tends to continue the veins within the pelvis and limit the blood to flow in the legs. This causes a heavily increasing pressure on the veins below the pelvis and finally the valves give away leading to its incompetency.
Vulval Varicose Veins Explained
In some pregnant females, there is a chance that these varicosities tend to occur in the vulval area. This happens most typically within the last trimester. Vulval varices are often very sore and often bleed during the delivery of the baby.
Vulval varices are usually caused by leaking valves within the pelvic area, rather than on the legs. Pelvic vein reflux is common during and after pregnancy, especially in women who have delivered a natural birth. This natural reflex can be one of the triggering factors to get varicose veins in legs and vulva. When this happens, it’s particularly difficult to treat the veins. Moreover, these tend to reoccur more often within the highest of the thigh.
Luckily, most vulval varicose veins improve after parturition and only a minority of patients have issues that need treatment after pregnancy.
Treatment of varicose veins During and After Pregnancy?
During pregnancy, definitive treatment (surgery) isn’t recommended, because it can put the baby in peril. For patients with problematic veins, it’s always suggested they wear compression stockings or tights until the pregnancy is over. These help to squeeze the blood, which consequently goes within the proper direction. It is also sensible to want better care of the leg skin by applying a moisturizer daily.
After pregnancy, veins are often fixed by surgery. Over the last 10 years, treatment for varicose veins has moved from the high tie and strip operation with its painful post-operative course, hospital stay, and high rate of recurrence, to the fashionable era of minimally invasive surgery with lasers, glue, sclerotherapy, and other new treatments.
All these surgeries can all be performed under anesthetic agent on a walk-in/walk out basis. These surgeries take about a half-hour and typically patients are back to work within one week. This implies that it’s now much easier and quicker to treat varicose veins, so don’t despair if you notice a forming vein while pregnant just catch on checked by a vascular surgeon to be on the safer side.
Read More
